Nasa's Mars rover and the 'seven minutes of terror'

The

US space agency (Nasa) has released an animation showing how its

one-tonne Perseverance rover will land on Mars on 18 February. The

robot is being sent to a crater called Jezero where it will search for

evidence of past life. But to undertake this science, it must first

touch down softly. The sequence of manoeuvres needed to land on Mars is often referred to as the "seven minutes of terror" - and with good reason.So

much has to go right in a frighteningly short space of time or the

arriving mission will dig a very big and very expensive new hole in the

Red Planet.What's more, it's all autonomous.