Dikhyaa Mohanty 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) landed successfully its Perseverance rover in a deep crater near the planet Mars’ equator called Jezero aimed to find whether there were life forms that ever existed on the planet.
As per the BBC report, many scientists of NASA were excited about the Perseverance’s safe landing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California after operations lead Swati Mohan confirmed the landing of the rover in the Jezero crater.
The spacecraft is a six-wheeled vehicle and will be spending at least the next two years drilling into the local rocks and looking for any evidence of past life. It is assumed that Jezero had a giant lake billion of years ago and if it has then there is a possibility of life also.
The Perseverance was arrived safely at 20:55 GMT along with the first two images which 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.
The report further stated that post-landing analysis indicated the vehicle had come down about 2 km to the southeast of the delta feature in Jezero that Perseverance plans to investigate.
After the landing of the Perseverance rover, the engineers at NASA’s mission control in California celebrated with joy. US President Joe Biden also expressed his happiness via Twitter- “Congratulations to NASA and everyone whose hard work made Perseverance’s historic landing possible. Today proved once again that with the power of science and American ingenuity, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility.”
Steve Jurczyk, the acting administrator at NASA also shared his happiness by quoting “What a credit to the team. Just what an amazing team to work through all the adversity and all the challenges that go with landing a rover on Mars, plus the challenges of Covid. Just an amazing accomplishment.”
Mike Watkins, the director of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the home of the agency’s Mars mission also expressed his happiness- “There is something special about the first few days (of the mission) because we have just landed a representative of Planet Earth on a place on Mars that no-one has ever been to.”
News Source – BBC
Image Source – NASA
