NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover landed on the surface of Mars on February 18, 2021. Touchdown was confirmed and announced in mission control in Southern California at 2:55 pm CST. It completed a 203 day journey which covered 293 million miles.

NASA live-streamed and recorded Perseverance’s seven minute landing process a portion of which can be watched here.

The Perseverance Rover was sent to Mars to collect, store, and return Martian rock samples to Earth for further research.  The main objective of the mission is astrobiology research, which includes searching for signs of ancient microbial life.

Since landing on February 18, Perseverance has been hard at work collecting images, audio files, and samples.

Below are the first black and white and color image from the surface of Mars.

 

 The first 360° view of Mars… 

 While it is incredible to see the view from Mars’ surface, what does it sound like on the Red Planet?

 Rock samples collected by Perseverance are expected to be returned to Earth as early as 2031.