Joe Biden congratulates Nasa, team for Perseverance's historic landing on Mars
US President Joe Biden on Friday congratulated Nasa on rover Perseverance's landing and said the astronomical feat shows that with the power of science and American ingenuity, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility.
"Congratulations to NASA and everyone whose hard work made Perseverance’s historic landing possible. Today proved once again that with the power of science and American ingenuity, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility," the US President said in a tweet.
Rover Perseverance is the most advanced astrobiology lab ever sent to another world, streaked through the Martian atmosphere. The rover landed safely inside a vast crater on the Red Planet, marking the initiation of the first stop on a search for traces of ancient microbial life on Mars.
Also read | ‘My first look at my forever home’: Perseverance sends home its first pictures of planet Mars
Mission managers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles burst into applause, cheers and fist-bumps as radio beacons signaled that the rover had survived its perilous descent and arrived as planned on the floor of Jezero Crater, site of a long-vanished Martian lake bed.
The six-wheeled vehicle came to rest about 2 kilometers from towering cliffs at the foot of a remnant fan-shaped river delta etched into a corner of the crater billions of years ago and considered a prime spot for geo-biological study on Mars.
"Touchdown confirmed. Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars," Swati Mohan, the lead guide and operations specialist announced from the control room.
The robotic vehicle sailed through space for nearly seven months, covering 472 million km before piercing the Martian atmosphere at 19,000km per hour to begin its descent to the planet's surface.
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