Quote Originally Posted by Ryllharu View Post
I'm sorry, this is quite possibly one of the most science-ignorant posts I've seen here in a long time.

What exactly is momentous about it? It's cool that we landed a 1-ton rover on Mars, but it isn't like we haven't flown past, orbited, landed, or crashed things into the Martian surface for dozens of years.
Landing mechanism: we used parachutes with the two rovers, retro-rockets in the 70s, Pheonix landed itself via rockets. The crane is the only innovative bit, but this isn't exactly untested technology either.
Power source: RTGs, used since...before we ever sent anything into space.

Mars is the most explored planet next to Earth.

Come back in 2015, the real momentous year in Terran space exploration. First close examination of Ceres ever (all we've got are blurry photos from Hubble), then a few months later, the first probe to ever go near Pluto/Charon (again, best we've got is crappy Hubble composites).
Looks like a nerd from an anime site just served all the scientists that are currently celebrating this occasion!

Just for the record, there's a big difference between landing a 380lb rover and a 2000lb one. You say Mars is the most explored next to Earth, but that still means virtually nothing, considering that it was only a few years ago that scientists even confirmed the presence of water underneath the planet's surface. Mars is also far more significant to us than distant planets, since we will actually have the means to colonize it in our lifetimes.