KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 19

The mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California has confirmed that Perseverance rover has successfully landed on the Martian land at the designed time – 3:55 pm EST on Thursday (5:40 am local time, Friday, in Kathmandu).

"Touchdown confirmed. The #CountdownToMars is complete, but the mission is just beginning," NASA tweeted. Scientists and engineers working for this Mars mission for years were overjoyed at the landing. They said it went "flawless".

The rover, launched on July 30, 2020, took 203 days to travel 293 million miles (472 million kilometers) to its "new home". The current location of the rover is shown by NASA through an interactive map.

In the release issued Friday, acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk said, "This landing is one of those pivotal moments for NASA, the United States, and space exploration globally – when we know we are on the cusp of discovery and sharpening our pencils, so to speak, to rewrite the textbooks. The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission embodies our nation's spirit of persevering even in the most challenging of situations, inspiring, and advancing science and exploration. The mission itself personifies the human ideal of persevering toward the future and will help us prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet."

Perseverance will need several weeks of testing before it starts its two-year science investigation of Mars's Jezero Crater, where life is believed to have once existed.

Tonight, the moon will shine right beside Mars, where Perseverance rover, is safely settled.

These next three evenings – February 17, 18 and 19, 2021 – watch the moon change position day by day. The waxing crescent moon pairs up with the faint planet Uranus on February 17, flits by the red planet Mars on February 18, and then joins up with the red star Aldebaran on February 19. Photo Courtesy: earthsky.org

NASA released the first images taken by the rover's engineering cameras, moments after it successfully touched down on the Red Planet's Jezero Crater.

The first look of Mars from the eye of NASA's Perseverance rover at landing, on Thursday, February 18, 2021. Photo Courtesy: NASA

Photo Courtesy: NASA

Here are more images from European Space Agency's Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter missions of Jezero Crater and the surrounding region in support of NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landing.

This image shows the remains of an ancient delta in Jezero Crater, which NASA's Perseverance Mars rover will explore for signs of fossilized microbial life. Photo Courtesy: European Space Agency

This elevation map of Jezero crater and its surroundings show the topography of the broader region, from the highlands (red and browns) to the lower lying floor of the Isidis impact basin (green). Photo Courtesy: European Space Agency

The image shows complete landing ellipse which is 7.7 x 6.6 km, and is centred on an ancient river delta near the rim of Jezero that could hold clues about whether or not Mars was able to harbour life at some point during its ancient past. Photo Courtesy: European Space Agency

This image shows the neighbouring area of the Perseverance's landing site. Photo Courtesy: European Space Agency

This image shows the neighbouring area of the Perseverance's landing site. For scale, the prominent crater left of centre is about 2 km across. Photo Courtesy: European Space Agency