Historic moment NASA launches rover on seven-month mission to Mars

At 12.50pm GMT the Atlas 5 rocket carrying the car-sized vehicle successfully lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral.Two minutes after that the nose cone, which helps protect the rocket during launch, fell away from it.

Following a seven minute blast of its boosters, the rocket will cruise around the Earth for 30 minutes before a second blast takes its out of the planet's orbit.The purpose of the mission is to search for traces of potential past life on Earth's planetary neighbour. Perseverance is due to land at the base of an 820-foot-deep crater called Jezero, a former lake from 3.5 billion years ago that scientists suspect could bear evidence of potential past microbial life on Mars.

Water is considered a key ingredient for life, and the Martian surface billions of years ago had lots of it on the surface before the planet became a harsh and desolate outpost.What sets the NASA craft apart is the presence of an aircraft.

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