The
China National Space Administration on Monday released a new Mars image
taken by the Tianwen-1 probe. In this combo photo, the left part is the
Martian surface before the lander carrying the rover touched down on
the red planet on May 15; and the right part shows the country's first
Mars rover and its landing platform on the Martian surface. [Photo
provided to Xinhua] The
China National Space Administration (CNSA) Monday released a new image
taken by the Tianwen-1 probe, showing the country's first Mars rover and
its landing platform on the red planet's surface. In
the image, taken by a high-resolution camera installed on the orbiter
of Tianwen-1 at 6 p.m. on June 2 (Beijing Time), two bright spots are
visible in the upper right corner. The larger one is the landing
platform, and the smaller one is the Zhurong Mars rover, the CNSA said. China's
Tianwen-1 mission, consisting of an orbiter, a lander, and a rover, was
launched on July 23, 2020. The lander carrying the rover touched down
in the southern part of Utopia Planitia, a vast plain in the northern
hemisphere of Mars, on May 15. The
rover Zhurong drove down from its landing platform to the Martian
surface on May 22, starting its exploration of the red planet, and
making China the second country after the United States to land and
operate a rover on Mars. The dark
area surrounding the landing platform might be caused by the influence
of the engine plume during landing. The symmetrical bright stripes in
the north-south direction of the landing platform might be from fine
dust when the landing platform emptied the remaining fuel after landing,
the CNSA said. The bright spots in
the center of the image are the back cover of the entry capsule and the
parachute jettisoned during the landing. Another bright spot in the
lower left of the image is the heat shield of the entry capsule, the
CNSA said. As of June 6, the rover
Zhurong has been working on the surface of Mars for 23 Martian days to
detect the environment, move around the surface, and carry out
scientific exploration. A Martian day is approximately 40 minutes longer
than a day on Earth. All scientific
equipment aboard the rover is turned on to collect data. The orbiter
operates in a relay orbit with a cycle of 8.2 hours, providing relay
communication for the scientific exploration of the Mars rover. The
rover Zhurong is named after the god of fire in ancient Chinese
mythology. The name echoes with the Chinese name for the red planet,
Huoxing (the fire planet), while the name of the mission, Tianwen, means
Questions to Heaven. It is the title of a poem by the ancient Chinese
poet Qu Yuan (circa 340-278 BC). With
an expected lifespan of at least 90 Martian days (about three months on
Earth), Zhurong will record the Martian landscape with high-resolution
three-dimensional images and analyze the material composition of the
planet's surface. It will also detect its sub-surface structure and
magnetic field, search for traces of ice and observe the surrounding
meteorological environment. The
orbiter, with a design life of one Martian year (about 687 days on
Earth), will relay communications for the rover while conducting its own
scientific detection operations.
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