Nasa Perseverance rover landed safely on Mars

Nasa has successfully landed its Perseverance rover in a deep crater of red planet Marss. the spot is near the planet's equator called Jezero. BBC Science Correspondent reports.

During the automated landing the unmanned rover faced no harms- mentioning the issue the mission's deputy project manager Matt Wallace said, "The good news is the spacecraft, I think, is in great shape."

The great moment when the confirmation of safe touchdown of the rover came through engineers at Nasa's mission control in California- all erupted with joy.

The American space agency scientists are expecting the six-wheeled vehicle will now spend at least the next 2 years drilling into the local rocks of Mars, looking for evidence of past life.

The area Jezero is thought to have held a giant lake billions of years ago. And where there's been water, there's the possibility there might also have been life as Earth.

The signal alerting controllers that Perseverance was down and safe arrived at 20:55 GMT. In the past they might have hugged and high-fived but strict coronavirus protocols meant they had all been separated by Perspex screens. A respectful fist bump was about all they could manage.

TOP: The rover touched down about 2km from the targeted delta feature in Jezero. BOTTOM: The rover's onboard computers successfully diverted the landing to the smoothest ground (blue) and avoided more hazardous ground (red) -NASA

Nonetheless, the excitement was evident. And the applause continued among the scientists when the first two images came in. They were taken by low-resolution engineering cameras. There was dust covering the still-attached translucent lens covers, but it was possible to see a flat surface both in front and behind the rover.

Post-landing analysis indicated the vehicle had come down about 2km to the south east of the delta feature in Jezero that Perseverance plans to investigate.

"We are in a nice flat spot. The vehicle is only tilted by about 1.2 degrees," said Allen Chen, who led the landing team. "So we did successfully find that parking lot and have a safe rover on the ground. And I couldn't be more proud of my team for doing that." Source: BBC