A friend at NASA has sent us this funny document that reveals two things for the first time. One, it shows exactly where Curiosity landed yesterday. The accuracy of the actual landing site compared to the target is impressive!*


And two, the NASA guys had a pool on where it would land, called Mars Madness 2012:

Because we're nerds and don't really know anything about basketball, our office pools look a little different around here.


The name of the guy who won is Dan Vartolomei, an Structures and Configuration Engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Congratulations, Dan. Enjoy your $15! (each of them put a buck each). And congratulations to the entire team for landing so incredibly close to target.

* This is the equivalent of shooting a bullet from the Empire State Building in New York to the Eiffel Tower in Paris and hitting the antenna right on its tip.

Update: And here's the official estimate:

Gizmodo is covering the Mars Curiosity rover live from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Check all the articles here.