Mangalyaan clicks and sends the first image of Mars

New Delhi: India's Mars Orbiter Mission Mangalyaan has released the first picture of the red planet after successfully entering into the Martian orbit on Wednesday.

The official Twitter handle of ISRO's Mars Orbiter uploaded a picture of our neighbouring red planet with the caption, "the view is nice up here," on Thursday.

The spacecraft is now circling Mars in an orbit whose nearest point to the planet is at 421.7 km.

On Wednesday, Twitterati enjoyed a fun exchange of tweets between NASA's Curiosity Rover and ISRO's Mars Orbiter. While Curiosity welcomed Mars Orbiter with a, "Namaste, @MarsOrbiter! Congratulations to @ISRO and India's first interplanetary mission upon achieving Mars orbit", Mars Orbiter responded with a, "Howdy @MarsCuriosity? Keep in touch. I'll be around."

With the successful Mars Orbit Insertion operation, ISRO has become the fourth space agency to successfully send a spacecraft to the Mars orbit. In the coming weeks, the spacecraft will be thoroughly tested in the Mars orbit with a subsequent systematic observation of the red planet using its five scientific instruments would begin.

Hailing ISRO scientists for this stupendous achievement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was present to witness the moment, said- "I congratulate all ISRO scientists and all Indians on this historic occasion. History has been created today. We have dared to reach out to the unknown."