There's a new robot on the surface of Mars.

BBC News reports the American space agency has successfully landed its Perseverance rover in a deep crater near the planet's equator called Jezero.

Engineers at Nasa's mission control in California in the US erupted with joy when confirmation of touchdown came through.

The six-wheeled vehicle will now spend at least the next two years drilling into the local rocks, looking for evidence of past life.

Jezero is thought to have held a giant lake billions of years ago.

And where there's been water, there's the possibility there might also have been life.

[Source: BBC]