The landing site is, as expected, flat as a pancake, a plain plane broken only by scattered small rocks. But don't call the site boring. "There are no boring places on Mars," Mars scientist and landing site maven Mat Golombek admonished me earlier in the day. At the post-landing press briefing, InSight principal investigator Bruce Banerdt said that the lander was only tilted 2 degrees, which will make it very easy to place the instruments.

Following the landing and first photo, InSight should have deployed its solar panels, but we won't know for sure if this crucial event happened for several more hours. We have to wait for Mars Odyssey's overflight and data relay to know if the lander is really power-positive and ready to proceed in its preparations for its scientific mission. Another thing to look forward to today is the possibility of a Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE photo of the spacecraft under its parachute. I'll update this story when I hear any news on either of these fronts -- stay tuned!

And here's that update: The solar panels did safely deploy yesterday, so the mission is on its way to work.

In the meantime, one of the two InSight companion CubeSats returned this AMAZING photo.