This is just an incredible scene Dr Thomas Mutch

Head of the Viking surface photography team Dr Thomas Mutch said: "This is just an incredible scene. It looks safe and very interesting."

The 10-foot-wide robotic lander touched down at 1112 GMT and began taking photographs 25 seconds later.

Viking I began its 200 million mile unmanned journey to Mars 11 months ago and the project team has been looking for a suitable place to land for the last two weeks.

They decided on Chryse Plantia - about 2.4 degrees north and 47.5 degrees west - as a relatively smooth and flat surface.

After receiving commands from the control centre it took the $153 million landing craft over three hours to detach itself - by small explosions and springs - from the mother-ship and reach the surface of the Red Planet, 12,600 miles below.

The larger space-craft will remain in orbit, relaying radio messages between Earth and the lander and taking aerial photographs of Mars.

The lander is expected to take photographs of the planet until November and it has been fitted with a long mechanical arm to collect soil for biological and chemical analysis later.

A Soviet Union landing on Mars in 1971 failed to transmit any useful data.

Data from the Martian mission will provide scientists with evidence of the nitrogen, carbon and water necessary to sustain life as we know it.

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