NASA shows Perseverance's first drive on Mars

NASA on Friday showed video of first drive on surface of Mars by its Perseverance rover.

A still photo showed wheel tracks of rover on surface of Red Planet.

"So, where tires made contact or wheel, I should say or wheels made contact with ground when we landed. You can see wheel tracks that we left on Mars. I don't think I've ever been happier to see wheel tracks and I've seen a lot of m. And this is just a huge milestone for mission and mobility team, Anais Zarifian, Perseverance mobility test bed engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said during virtual press conference.

Perseverance landed on Mars on Feb. 18, accomplishing riskiest step yet in an epic quest to bring back rocks that could answer wher life ever existed on Mars.

Perseverance, biggest, most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, became ninth craft since 1970s to successfully land on Mars, every one of m from U.S.

car-size, plutonium-powered vehicle arrived at Jezero Crater, hitting NASA's smallest and trickiest target yet: a 5-by-4-mile strip on an ancient river delta full of pits, cliffs and rocks.

NASA has named landing site of ncy's Perseverance rover after science fiction author Octavia E. Butler.

Scientists believe that if life ever flourished on Mars, it would have happened 3 billion to 4 billion years ago, when water still flowed on planet.