Cheers as Mars InSight Spacecraft Lands on Red Planet

Cheers and applause erupted at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Monday as a waist-high unmanned lander, called InSight, touched down on Mars, capping a nearly seven-year journey from design to launch to landing, reports AFP.

The dramatic arrival of the $993 million spacecraft -- designed to listen for quakes and tremors as a way to unveil the Red Planet's inner mysteries, how it formed billions of years ago and, by extension, how other rocky planets like Earth took shape -- marked the eighth successful landing on Mars in NASA's history.