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

"The good news is the spacecraft, I think, is in great shape," said Matt Wallace, the mission's deputy project manager.

Engineers at Nasa's mission control in California erupted with joy when the 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.