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The country’s rover and lander are in good health.
Martian landscapes
The Chinese rover Zhurong has spent the last 100 Earth days roaming the desolate landscapes of Mars. To celebrate the momentous occasion, the Chinese space agency has released a number of photos showing how far the rover has come since leaving behind the Tianwen-1 orbiter that brought it there in May, the South China Morning Post reports.
The magnificent red landscapes, one of which is a wide panorama, were captured last Tuesday by the orbiter, proof that the first Chinese mission to Mars is well advanced.
If you look closely, the panorama shows the tire tracks of the Zhurong rover in the center.
Rover tracks
Rover and orbiter “in good condition and functioning properly”, official news agency says Xinhua.
The rover has moved more than a kilometer (1,064 meters to be precise) south since it was released by the lander to study the boundary between what is believed to be an ancient seabed and land in the southern region of Utopia Planitia, a massive plain in the northern hemisphere of the planet.
The orbiter and rover will lose their communications next month, as the Sun will interrupt the signal while traveling between Mars and Earth, according to the space agency.
China only became the third country to gently land a spacecraft on Mars in May, after the United States and the Soviet Union (although the latter’s effort in 1971 was extremely disappointing).
If all goes according to plan, this is just the start of a series of ambitious missions to Mars by China. The country hopes to recover samples of Martian soil in the course of 2030 and send astronauts there as early as 2033, according to SCMP.
NASA has also made considerable progress in studying the near-red planet, successfully landing eight times. But with unprecedented investments in space travel, China may well have a chance to close the gap.
READ MORE: China releases new images of Mars as nation marks 100 days of exploration of the red planet [South China Morning Post]
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