"Curiosity was very confident in the location of its touch down," he added. "Now NASA will work to verify that its navigation data is correct.... Like the sailors did, we use the stars."

Just after 1:30 a.m. ET today, the one-ton, SUV-sized rover landed inside a Martian crater. The rover, named Curiosity, used a supersonic parachute, nylon tethers and rockets to safely alight safely.

Seven minutes elapsed between the time the spacecraft entered the Martian atmosphere and the time it touched down on the planet's surface. Adam Steltzner, a NASA engineer, called it "seven minutes of terror" because the rover had to go from 13,000 miles an hour to zero in a perfectly choreographed sequence of events.

NASA engineers weren't in control of the landing. The rover's computers were programmed to handle it on their own.

As Curiosity made its way through the Martian atmosphere, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter grabbed a stunning shot of it with its open parachute, which is 51 feet in diameter.