Yeah, I'm very surprised too. Guess they were all excited that everything went well & it survived the re-entry & landing.
This image shows a polygonal pattern in the ground near NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, similar in appearance to icy ground in the arctic regions of Earth. This is an approximate-color image taken shortly after landing on May 25, 2008. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA.
This image, one of the first captured by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, shows the vast plains of the northern polar region of Mars just after landing on May 25, 2008. The flat landscape is strewn with tiny pebbles and shows polygonal cracking, a pattern seen widely in Martian high latitudes and also observed in permafrost terrains on Earth. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona.
NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander can be seen parachuting down to Mars, in this image captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on May 25, 2008. This is the first time that a spacecraft has imaged the final descent of another spacecraft onto a planetary body. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona.
Success!
NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed in the northern polar region of Mars Sunday, May 25, 2008, to begin three months of examining a site chosen for its likelihood of having frozen water within reach of the lander's robotic arm. This black-and-white self-portrait shows Phoenix's leg nestled in the Martian soil.
Radio signals received at 7:53 p.m. EDT confirmed the Phoenix Mars Lander had survived its difficult final descent and touchdown 15 minutes earlier. The signals took that long to travel from Mars to Earth at the speed of light. Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, University of Arizona.