Chinese spacecraft arrives at Mars and prepares to search for alien life

A Chinese spacecraft has arrived at Mars and is preparing to explore its surface, the country has said.

The Tianwen-1 spacecraft is one of three missions to the red planet arriving this month. It comes a day after a UAE spaceraft successfully went into orbit around the planet, and ahead of the arrival of Nasa's Perseverance rover.

The Chinese mission is made up of a rover and orbiter in combination. For now, the two will float around the red planet, but in a few months the rover will detach and float down to the surface.

When it does, it hopes to collect information about water under the Martian surface as well as look for signs of ancient alien life on the planet.