NASA's Perseverance rover lands on Mars to look for signs of ancient life

Ground controllers cheered and exchanged fist bumps and high-fives in triumph - and relief - on receiving confirmation that Perseverance had touched down on the red planet

A NASA rover streaked through the orange Martian sky and landed on the planet Friday, accomplishing the riskiest step yet in an epic quest to bring back rocks that could answer whether life ever existed on Mars.

Ground controllers at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, cheered and exchanged fist bumps and high-fives in triumph — and relief — on receiving confirmation that the six-wheeled Perseverance had touched down on the red planet, long a deathtrap for incoming spacecraft.
 

It took a tension-filled 11 1/2 minutes for the signal to reach Earth.
 

“Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance safely on the