Watch the moment Nasa's Perseverance rover landed on Mars and sent back its first images

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of the area in front of it using its onboard Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera A. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The world watched last night as Nasa’s Mars Perseverance rover landed on Mars and sent back its first images from the red planet.

The spacecraft set off from earth seven months ago.

Its mission is to search for signs of ancient life, and explore and collect samples for future return to Earth from diverse environments on Mars.

Watch NASA's video (skip to 1 hour 45 mins for the landing moment):

With the mission costing $2.4 billion and countless labour hours there was a huge amount at stake, but it survived the so-called “seven minutes of terror” to land safely.

It took more than 11 minutes for news of the safe landing to reach Earth, arriving at just before 9pm (GMT).

Steve Jurczyk, Nasa’s acting administrator, said: “It’s amazing to have Perseverance join Curiosity on Mars and 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.

“And just an amazing accomplishment.”

More images, videos and sounds from the landing are expected to start arriving from the rover over the weekend.