The American space agency’s Mars explorer, Perseverance, landed successfully on the Red Planet Thursday after a seven-month trip. The six-wheeled explorer, or rover, is on a NASA mission to collect Martian soil and rocks as part of the search for signs of ancient life. Ground controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California cheered after receiving confirmation of the landing on Mars. It took 11-and-one-half minutes for the confirmation signal to reach Earth. Moments later, controllers received the rover’s first pictures of Mars. Perseverance landed in an area of Mars called Jezero Crater, just north of the planet’s equator. The area contains a large ancient lakebed.