NASA, ISRO exchange space Tweets as Mangalyaan starts beaming pics

Firmly placed in its Mars orbit, Mangalyaan today started beaming the first pictures of the red planet.

The official Twitter handle of the Indian Space Research Organisation has uploaded a picture of the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) with the caption, "the view is nice up here."

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

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

With the Mars orbit insertion operation, ISRO has become the fourth space agency to successfully send a spacecraft into the Mars orbit, and the first to enter it successfully in its very first attempt (See: ISRO creates history as Mars orbiter Mangalyaan in place sans glitch).

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.