Humanity would not progress if we had not taken such leaps into the unknown: PM

Mangalyaan, India's maiden Mars mission, successfully entered the planet's orbit on Wednesday, in a historic moment for India's space programme. "History has been created," said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who watched the spacecraft successfully enter the Mars orbit on Wednesday morning.

Mangalyaan Tweets Howdy As NASA's Curiosity Says Namaste on Twitter

"Howdy @MarsCuriosity ? Keep in touch. I'll be around". This and a few other tweets announced the "Mars arrival" of India's Mangalyaan, and its new Twitter account.

NASA's mission Curiosity was the first to tweet to the account with a greeting, "Namaste, @MarsOrbiter! Congratulations to @ISRO and India's first interplanetary mission upon achieving Mars orbit."

NASA's 2014 Mars mission Maven also congratulated ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation).

The account @MarsOrbiter debuted just as Mangalyaan successfully entered the planet's orbit this morning. Within two hours, the account had 22,000 followers and was rising rapidly.

Its first few tweets had a humorous twist, "What is red, is a planet and is the focus of my orbit?" - re-tweeted 6,000 times - and "I'll be back after breakfast. Good ol' sunlight. It's good for your battery."

The tweets and the exchange between three missions delighted @MarsOrbiter's growing legion of followers. "Brilliant! @MarsOrbiter interacting with @MarsCuriosity. That's the beauty of @twitter," said one post.

On Twitter, Mangalyaan is a top trending topic in India and worldwide after creating history by entering the orbit of Mars on its first attempt. The top nine trending topics in India are all about the Mars mission.

Many tweets were posted from the account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is one of India's most twitter-savvy politicians and who watched the space milestone from the ISRO centre in Bengaluru.

With a spacecraft around Mars, India today joined a small group of nations - the United States, Russia and Europe - who have succeeded in their Mars missions.

App to help you click selfie with Mangalyaan

Hyderabad based Neeraj Jewalkar of Smartur has developed a mobile application (app) built on augmented reality that allows users of Android phone users and iOS mobile devices to click a selfie with Indian spaceship Mangalyaan that entered the Martian orbit on Wednesday.

The application was created to spread awareness about the mission and it offered a three dimensional view of the spacecraft and rocket launcher.

Jewalkar, CEO of Smartur.com, said, "This application would bring mission into your room. You can see Mangalyaan, its path and the various equipments it is carrying.”

Within a week of its launch, more than 1,200 people have downloaded this application. The Mangalyaan application is fast becoming popular among students as well.

“The app allows the participants to click and upload/share innovative pictures that can look like Mangalyaan is lifting off from their hands or out of their car or any other idea that comes to their mind,” he said.

“A participant would be required to download the app for free on their mobile device and take a print out of the 'Marker' (a marker is a design that helps the model the Mangalyaan to be placed in reality). The combination of the app and marker would give users an actual feel of being right there with the Mangalyaan,” Jewalkar added.