30 min ago
This is the first image Perseverance sent from Mars
NASA-JPL/Caltech
Just minutes after landing on Mars, NASA's Perseverance rover beamed back this image to Earth. It is the first of many the rover will send while it's on its mission on the planet.
41 min ago
NASA's rover sends its first tweet after landing
So, Perseverance isn't actually tweeting from Mars, per se, but humans back at NASA are.
Here's what the account tweeted shortly after landing:
47 min ago
JUST IN: Perseverance rover has safely landed on Mars
NASA-JPL/Caltech
The Perseverance rover just became NASA's fifth rover to safely land on the surface of Mars after surviving the "seven minutes of terror."
This is the most sophisticated rover the agency has ever sent to the Red Planet. It will gather data and look for signs of ancient life in a crater that once contained a lake about 3.9 billion years ago.
50 min ago
The parachute has deployed
NASA-JPL/Caltech
Perseverance's parachute has just deployed, and it has slowed its speed. It's very close to the surface.
55 min ago
The "7 minutes of terror" have begun
Perseverance has just started what NASA refers to as the "seven minutes of terror." This is when the rover essentially has to land itself on Mars with no help from NASA, due to a one-way 11 minute time-delay.
The ground teams tell the spacecraft when to begin EDL (entry, descent and landing) and the spacecraft takes over from there — and mission control begins an agonizing wait.
The spacecraft hits the top of the Martian atmosphere moving at 12,000 miles per hour and has to slow down to zero miles per hour seven minutes later when the rover softly lands on the surface.
Here's a look at what happens during the final moments:
This illustration shows the events that occur in the final minutes of the nearly seven-month journey that NASA’s Perseverance rover takes to Mars. NASA/JPL-Caltech