An selfie taken by China's Tianwen-1, made available by the China National Space Administration, in December. China announced Wednesday that the probe had entered orbit around Mars. China National Space Administration/AP hide caption
China's space agency, fresh off a successful sample-return mission to the moon, announced Wednesday that an ambitious rover mission it launched in July had reached orbit around Mars.
"China's Tianwen 1 robotic probe entered Martian orbit on Wednesday night after a lengthy interplanetary voyage, becoming the first Chinese spacecraft to reach the red planet," the state-run China Daily reported, citing the China National Space Administration.
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China Probe Becomes Second in Two Days to Reach Mars | Voice of America - English
Chinese state media reported Wednesday a spacecraft known as Tianwen-1 has successfully entered orbit around Mars, the first step in an ambitious mission that includes landing a rover on the surface of the planet.
In a statement, China's National Space Administration said the spacecraft conducted a 15-minute burn of its thrusters, slowing it down enough to be pulled into Mars' gravity, making it the country's first artificial satellite orbiting the planet.
Scientists detect water vapour emanating from Mars
But some of it is vaporising, in the form of hydrogen leaking from the atmosphere, according to the new research co-authored in the journal Science Advances by two scientists at Britain's Open University.
They detected the vapour by analysing light passing through the Martian atmosphere using an instrument called the Nadir and Occultation for Mars Discovery.
The device is travelling aboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a joint mission between the European Space Agency and Russia's Roscosmos.
The Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE): We're Looking Forward to your Visit! | NASA
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3 Spacecraft Will Land On Mars At About The Same Time : NPR
Last summer three spacecraft took off for Mars within days of each other. And just about seven months after launch, the three will soon greet the Red Planet at about the same time.
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The United Arab Emirates' Hope orbiter entered the orbit of Mars yesterday. China's Quest for Heavenly Truth rover is expected to arrive today. And the U.S. spacecraft Perseverence is scheduled to actually touch down on the surface of Mars next week.
LEROY CHIAO: It's kind of a little bit of a coincidence that all three spacecraft are going to be arriving, you know, so closely together.
Transient HCl in the atmosphere of Mars | Science Advances
A major quest in Mars' exploration has been the hunt for atmospheric gases, potentially unveiling ongoing activity of geophysical or biological origin. Here, we report the first detection of a halogen gas, HCl, which could, in theory, originate from contemporary volcanic degassing or chlorine released from gas-solid reactions.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.
This new map of ice on Mars could guide future astronauts | Space
That base will likely be built in the Martian mid-latitudes, which feature plenty of water ice and enough warmth and sunlight to make operations feasible. The poles are very icy but also cold and dark; equatorial regions are warm and bright, by Martian standards, but also relatively dry. Mid-latitude terrain also tends to be at low elevations, making it easier for heavy human-class landers to touch down, NASA officials have said.
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Mars' mid-latitude ice is buried beneath the planet's famous red dirt. But NASA and its exploration partners are now getting a better idea of where the most accessible pockets of it are, thanks to a project called Subsurface Water Ice Mapping (SWIM), which is led by the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California.
Mars mission inspires growing fan base back in China
BEIJING (AP) — As China’s first spacecraft to Mars orbits the red planet, the nation is falling in love with space. It’s inspired by the ruling Communist Party's increasingly ambitious plans over the past two decades to launch humans into orbit and explore the moon and Mars. Tourists flock to tropical Hainan island to watch rockets blast off. Others visit mock Mars colonies in desert sites with white domes, airlocks and spacesuits.
A potentially stormy 7-10 day period is upon us. Check out the latest forecast video for which days could see stormy…
Happening on Twitter
#BREAKING China's first Mars probe Tianwen-1 has successfully entered the orbit of the red planet after a crucial "… https://t.co/6zxYJ5rjqT CGTNOfficial (from Beijing, China) Wed Feb 10 12:58:24 +0000 2021
CHINA HAS DONE IT! It's Tianwen-1 spacecraft is now orbiting Mars!!! sarahcruddas (from Lost in Space) Wed Feb 10 13:07:17 +0000 2021
China says its Tianwen-1 spacecraft has entered orbit around Mars on a mission to land a rover and collect data on… https://t.co/p5qzZCT0h7 AP (from Global) Wed Feb 10 13:23:20 +0000 2021
It's a month of Mars! Congratulations Tianwen-1 and Hope — spacecraft from China and UAE are in orbit around Mars.… https://t.co/pDCrn3p7L9 BillNye (from Los Angeles, CA) Wed Feb 10 18:38:18 +0000 2021
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