A Nasa spacecraft designed to burrow beneath the surface of Mars landed on the red planet today after a six-month, 482 million km journey and a perilous, six-minute descent through the rose-hued atmosphere.

Flight controllers at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, leaped out of their seats and erupted in screams, applause and laughter as the news came in.

A pair of mini satellites trailing InSight since their May liftoff provided practically real-time updates of the spacecraft's supersonic descent through the reddish skies.

Space.com senior writer Meghan Bartels told Kate Hawkesby it's hoped the lander will answer a lot of questions about our neighbour.

"How big the core is, whether it's solid or molten, how plasma waves propagate through the planets interior."