Less than a week after China became just the second nation to successfully land a rover on the surface of Mars, its Zhurong rover beamed back its first images of the Red Planet on Wednesday.
The two pictures, one a monochrome image from a fisheye lens and another in color showing a zoomed-in view of Zhurong’s array of solar panels, represent the first pictures of Mars from China’s Tianwen-1 mission.
“Congratulations to CNSA on the first images from the Zhurong Mars rover!” tweeted NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a former U.S. senator.
“As the international scientific community of robotic explorers on Mars grows, the US and the world looks forward to the discoveries Zhurong will make to advance humanity’s knowledge of the Red Planet,” Nelson said.
The Tianwen-1 mission launched in July 2020 and arrived at Mars in February. It orbited the planet for months before sending its lander down last week.
Planitia Utopia, Zhurong’s landing site on Mars, is a vast, icy plain that was also the destination of America’s Viking 2 lander in 1976, which was stationary.
Zhurong is about midway between Viking 2 and Perseverance, according to a map published by Nature.
In early March, NASA drove Perseverance, its newest Mars rover, off its landing craft and onto the Martian surface.
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Since then Perseverance has sent up its Ingenuity craft, a tiny experimental helicopter, in several controlled flights, according to Ingenuity’s Twitter page.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
