Feb 17, 2021 8:34 PM EDT At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, there’s a special name for the time it will take the Mars Perseverance spacecraft to travel from the top of the Martian atmosphere to the surface of the planet. They call it “seven minutes of terror.” Perseverance is expected to land on the Red Planet Thursday after a seven-month journey. But for the final drop, the crew back on Earth won’t be able to guide the nerve-wracking, high-stakes landing. Instead, it will rely on new technology and lots of training to — hopefully — reach its destination, Mars’ Jezero Crater, and begin its mission looking for evidence of ancient life.