https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/perseverance-has-landed-mars-rover-begins-a-new-era-of-exploration/ > Humanity’s on-again, off-again exploration of Mars appears to have lived through its latest make-or-break moment, and scientists around the world are beginning to breathe sighs of relief. > Shortly after 3:44 P.M. Eastern time today, a visitor from Earth fell from a clear, cold Martian sky into a 3.5-billion-year old, 50-kilometer-wide bowl of rock, dust and volcanic ash called Jezero Crater that once held a large lake. Seven minutes earlier, it had touched the top of the planet’s atmosphere at nearly 20,000 kilometers per hour, bleeding off most of its speed through friction, protected from the resulting fireball by a heat shield. A supersonic parachute the size of a Little League baseball field unfurled to slow it further, followed by a final computer-piloted descent on a robotic jetpack called a sky crane, which used a detachable tether to gently lower the visitor to rest upon the crater floor. Far overhead, orbital spacecraft monitored its progress, awaiting the first signals confirming its successful landing, which, beamed Earthward at the speed of light, would arrive at our planet some 11 minutes later.