You've all heard about this already, but what the hell, I'm utterly lost in admiration for the team who planned, built, and by god delivered Phoenix to Mars. I mean, the damn thing had travelled 423 million miles and was doing 13,000 miles an hour when it hit the atmosphere. And it not only survived and made a picture-perfect landing, but seems to be working just fine.
Not only that, but the Mars Orbiter even took its picture as it parachuted down.



Okay, it's not a great photo, but who cares? For the very first time, a space probe in orbit around another planet took a photograph of another space probe as it parachuted into the atmosphere. Oh, sensawunda overload...