Nasa's Perseverance rover lands on Mars

There's a new robot on the surface of Mars.

The American space agency has successfully landed its Perseverance rover in a deep crater near the planet's equator called Jezero.

Engineers at Nasa's mission control in California erupted with joy when confirmation of touchdown came through.

The six-wheeled vehicle will now spend at least the next two years drilling into the local rocks, looking for evidence of past life.

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.

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.

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

Steve Jurczyk, the acting administrator at Nasa, saluted the achievement: "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 missions, said such successes would pave the way for eventual human missions to the Red Planet.

"We're not ready to go there with astronauts yet, but the robots are ready," he stated.

"It is just fantastic to be able to do that and to learn from each rover, learn from the science and the engineering and to make the next one better. Every time we do one of these missions, we make fabulous discoveries and each one is more exciting than the last."