Space talk: Mars satellites make Tweet love

In space, no one can hear you scream. But they can certainly see you tweet. 

 

This week Indian satellite Mangalyaan entered Mars' orbit – for considerably less than others in the space race (and films set on satellites). 

 

But not only is it one of the cheapest Mars missions, it's also one of the most social.

 

On entering Mars' orbit yesterday, Mangalyaan opened its Twitter account with this not particularly taxing riddle: 

 

https://twitter.com/MarsOrbiter/status/514603320137097216

 

It also had a bit of banter with Nasa's rover Curiosity, which is actually on Mars: 

 

 

Earlier today, we got a snap of the Red Planet – and for once we will forgive the blur for the sheer wonder of the subject:

 

https://twitter.com/MarsOrbiter/status/515008143361712129 

 

So with just four tweets to its name, @MarsOrbiter has already won over nearly 100,000 followers. 

 

We didn't realise but the Martian mission is really rather chatty.

 

That's probably no surprise given how much activity there is around the planet at the moment, but still not bad if you consider the Alien warning that has stayed with us for a lifetime.  

 

Last week Nasa's orbiter Maven reached its destination, receiving a warm welcome from its groundling counterpart

 

 

Curiosity has been tweeting since it landed on the planet in 2012, and it nows how to keep our interest – as reflected in the fact it has 1.66m followers. 

 

https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity/status/510138928909672449 

 

https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity/status/496678532479590402 

 

Meanwhile rovers Spirit and Oppy have a joint account, @MarsRovers, which has been updating us since 2004.