Total silence fell over a crowd of at least 100 people Monday at Space centre Houston, their heads tilted upward as they watched NASA attempt to successfully land a probe on Mars for the first time in six years.

The mission controller at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California counted down the distance between the Insight lander and the Martian surface: 500 meters. 200 meters. 80 meters. Those gathered held their breaths.

And that collective breath immediately was released in a flurry of hoots, hollers and heck yeahs when Insight finally touched down. Insight launched in May to study Mar's deep interior over the next two years so NASA so better understand how rocky planets like Earth formed.

After the dust settled from InSight's twelve rockets that controlled the landing, the lander took a slightly dusty picture and sent it back to the scientists and engineers waiting at NASA. It showed that the craft had performed flawlessly and it was perfectly positioned to carry out its scientific mission over the next weeks and months.

Insight will be NASA's first robotic mission to study the crust, mantle and core of the Red Planet.

Doing this work is important if scientists want to understand how rocky planets, such as Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury, were formed, according to NASA.