The American space agency, Nasa, is celebrating the successful landing of its robotic vehicle on Mars following a journey lasting more than eight months.

The success of the rover - called Curiosity - was greeted with cheers and hugs at mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

To control its descent, the one-tonne (2,200lb) vehicle was slowed by a parachute and retro-rockets. One of the first images from the rover - taken with camera dust cover still in place - shows the wheel of the rover after successfully landing on the Red Planet.

In a second picture, the shadow of the rover can be seen. Images were taken and transferred within minutes of landing, with high-resolution images to come later. A first colour image of Curiosity's surroundings should be returned in the next couple of days.

The rover will now embark on a mission of at least two years to look for evidence that Mars may once have hosted life.

Nasa officials called it a historic moment. "We're on Mars again," Nasa chief Charles Bolden (pictured) said. "It's just absolutely incredible. It doesn't get any better than this."

The voyage to Mars spanned 352 million miles (566 million km).