Nasa Spacecraft Successfully Enters Mars Orbit

After a 442-million-mile journey that started almost a year ago, the Maven spacecraft slips into orbit around the Red Plane

Nasa's Maven spacecraft has reached Mars after a 442-million-mile flight through space that began a year ago.

After arriving at the Red Planet, Maven fired its main engines for about 33 minutes to slow down enough to "capture" into Mars' orbit.

Flight controllers managing the $671m mission will spend six weeks checking the robotic explorer's instruments before it begins observations of the Red Planet's atmosphere.

Nasa hopes Mars' atmosphere could reveal clues about its microbial life

The mission's goal is to explore the planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and interactions with the Sun and solar wind.

Maven - the name is short for Martian Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution - will also explore the planet’s interactions with the Sun.

Scientists believe Mars' atmosphere could hold clues as to how the planet went from being warm and wet billions of years ago to cold and dry today.

Early Mars could have harboured microbial life, researchers believe.