Curiously, the interesting part is just beginning...

For those of you who were not part of the throngs of enthusiasts whose collective traffic shut down all of NASA's websites yesterday evening, humanity completed our sixth successful Mars landing at around 22:30 PDT. The largest and most complex rover yet, the Mars Science Laboratory (or Curiosity) completed an ambitious landing procedure and successfully began transmitting data. Though media attention likely reached its peak on on landing, as the dust settles on the Martian surface, the good part is just beginning.