The Chinese Mars probe, Tianwen-1, has been hovering around Mars in a parking orbit for nearly two months now, preparing for the rover’s landing in May.
But it’s not just there in orbit to rotate its antennas. The probe examines the planet, orbits closer, looks at the mission’s rover’s chosen landing site – and returns some fantastic images of our dusty planetary friend.
On March 16 and March 18, the spacecraft took two panoramic photos with its medium-resolution camera of a crescent moon Mars, seen from the other side, with the sun behind it, from a distance of about 11,000 kilometers (6,835 miles).
(CNSA)
From that distance, surface features, different colors of stripes across the surface of Mars, are visible, as well as a faintly blurred outline – the planet’s thin but dusty atmosphere wrapped around it like a delicate shell.
Mars is the most visited planet in the solar system, but there is still a lot we don’t know about it yet. With eight orbiters currently in use (including Tianwen-1 and the UAE’s Hope orbiter, which also arrived in February of this year), as well as two rovers and one lander, new discoveries are constantly being made.
Tianwen-1 is carrying a lander and a rover that will land in the Utopia Planitia, in the Utopia impact basin in the northern hemisphere of Mars. It is a large lava plain, under which massive amounts of ice have been found, and which scientists believe once existed an ocean before Mars lost its liquid surface water.
Exploring this region, the China National Space Administration believes, could yield some vital clues that could help us put together even more of the planet’s mysterious history.
No date has yet been set for the landing, but it is scheduled for mid-May, according to a speech by Chi Wang of the Chinese Academy of Scientists at Space Science Week 2021.
Once the rover is dropped, the orbiter continues to orbit the planet, conducting its own observations, and acting as a communication relay between Earth and Mars.
Hopefully we will see many more photos like this in the years to come.