Earlier today, NASA’s famous Perseverance rover landed on Mars. It has traveled over 292.5 million miles to get to Mars. It started going to Mars more than 6 months earlier, and has finally made it. The rover is going to explore Jezero Crater, which is the site of an ancient lake, which is a really tough spot to land, and is risky.
Perseverance had to land in 7 minutes (also called the “7 minutes of terror”). The challenge was, For a signal to go from Earth to Mars, it takes 11 minutes. That means NASA couldn’t guide Perseverance because the signals take too long. That’s why Perseverance had to land itself.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/18/world/mars-perseverance-rover-landing-scn-trnd/index.html
