The NASA spacecraft penetrated the Martian atmosphere today, Thursday, and landed safely on the surface of a vast crater, on its first station, looking for signs of ancient microbial life on the Red Planet.

Mission managers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, located near Los Angeles, cheered as radio signals arrived confirming that the rover, which includes six tires, had survived a landing Risky and reaching its target in a vast basin called Jizero crater, where the bottom of a lake disappeared long ago.

First photos

Immediately after its landing, the spacecraft, which is considered the most advanced mobile laboratory in astrobiology to be launched to another world, sent the first pictures it took on the surface of the Red Planet.

The spacecraft made a long journey in space that began about seven months ago, during which it traveled 472 million kilometers before penetrating the Martian atmosphere at a speed of 19 thousand kilometers per hour, to begin approaching the landing point on the surface of the red planet.

All three missions launched in July to take advantage of the close alignment between Earth and Mars, as they walked about 300 million miles in about seven months.

The Most Advanced Vehicle

And Perseverance is expected to become the largest and most advanced vehicle it has sent NASA has ever seen, and the ninth spacecraft has successfully landed on Mars, each one from the United States, starting in the 1970s.

The vehicle-sized plutonium-powered vehicle is targeting NASA’s smallest and most complex targets even Now: It’s a 5 x 4 mile strip on an ancient river delta filled with craters, cliffs and rock fields.

Scientists believe that if life thrived on Mars, that would have happened 3 billion to 4 years ago. Billions of years, when water was still flowing on the Red Planet.