NASA released video and audio on Monday (February 22) captured by Mars rover Perseverance during its landing on the surface of the Red Planet last week. A roughly three minute video shows the final minutes of Perseverance's entry, descent and landing, and an audio file depicts the sounds of wind gusting on the surface of Mars. Perseverance is seen landing in a swirl of sand and small rocks kicked up from the planet's surface by the rover's powerful rocket engines.

Five cameras located on three different components of the spacecraft collected the imagery while two microphones captured the sounds, according to NASA NASA scientists isolated and slowed down parts of the video and audio to explain the first sights and sounds captured by Perseverance during a news conference on Monday. The spacecraft's self-guided descent and landing during a complex series of maneuvers that NASA dubbed "the seven minutes of terror" stands as the most elaborate and challenging feat in the annals of robotic spaceflight. The six-wheeled vehicle came to rest about 2 kilometers from towering cliffs at the foot of a remnant fan-shaped river delta etched into a corner of the crater billions of years ago and considered a prime spot for geo-biological study on Mars. Perseverance sailed through space for nearly seven months, covering 293 million miles (472 million km) before piercing the Martian atmosphere at 12,000 miles per hour (19,000 km per hour) to begin its descent to the planet's surface. Scientists hope to find biosignatures embedded in samples of ancient sediments that Perseverance is designed to extract from Martian rock for future analysis back on Earth - the first such specimens ever collected by humankind from another planet. (Source: Reuters)