Four days after landing a spacecraft on Mars, China's space agency released its first photographs from the red planet on Wednesday, announcing that the mission was going as planned.
The four-day wait for the images — one in color, one in black and white, as well as a pair of small video clips — had prompted speculation that something might have gone wrong with the landing on Saturday. When China's space agency issued a statement in response to those concerns on Tuesday, urging patience, the response online was biting.
Why the China Mars rover's landing site has geologists excited
China's Mars rover Zhurong has yet to drive off its lander and start exploring. Credit: Xinhua/Alamy
Now that they know the general landing location of China's Zhurong Mars rover, scientists are rushing to analyse satellite images and geological maps to pinpoint intriguing features. Of particular significance is a possible mud volcano — a type of landform that no Mars rover has visited before.
"We want to propose the plan for the rover," says Xiao Long, a planetary geologist at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, who says scientists across China will now have the tantalizing opportunity to influence Zhurong's journey.
First images from China's Mars rover might take awhile to reach Earth - CNET
...about the lack of images. It seems they are in the post, as it were, which means China sending pics 320 million km across the inner solar system for the first time. We'll probably get our fresh look at Utopia Planitia soon enough.
There's no reason to fret about the health of the rover yet. Communications between Mars and Earth can be tricky and time-consuming. China's Tianwen-1 spacecraft is in orbit around the planet and will act as a relay for the rover.
Mars Rover Engineer by Day, Space-Rock Musician by Night - Rolling Stone
By day — or at least what constitutes day on Mars time — Brendan Chamberlain-Simon is a member of a group called the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which currently is among a larger team overseeing the Mars Perseverance rover mission; stargazers likely read of Chamberlain-Simon’s recent exploits, as — in his role of Helicopter Integration Engineer — he helped pilot the Mars rover’s helicopter during its inaugural flight on the distant planet.
China releases first images of Mars taken by Zhu Rong rover | South China Morning Post
See the Wild Plans for Nüwa, a Proposed City on Mars Built Inside a Giant Cliff
Described in a paper published in March, the city is the brainchild of architecture firm ABIBOO Studio and a multidisciplinary group of space experts from academia and the private sector called SONet (short for Sustainable Offworld Network). The Mars Society solicited plans for a Martian city in 2020, and this design, called Nüwa, was one of several finalists. A video that looks like it could've come straight out of a Hollywood sci-fi movie gives a glimpse of the design.
Nüwa seeks to become first sustainable city on Mars with 1 million residents - CNET
Nüwa, named for the Chinese mythological goddess who smelted together colored stones to patch up the sky, would be housed inside a sheer rock face at Tempe Mensa, Mars, where the city's 1 million residents would be protected from damaging cosmic and solar radiation.
"As the city grows, it has to be able to depend only on the resources directly on Mars and recycling as much as we can," Detrell said. "All the ways that we humans produce, we should be able to produce enough oxygen, water and food to sustain humans and close the cycle almost completely."
China lands on Mars in major advance for its space ambitions - ABC News
BEIJING -- China landed a spacecraft on Mars for the first time on Saturday, a technically challenging feat more difficult than a moon landing, in the latest step forward for its ambitious goals in space.
Plans call for a rover to stay in the lander for a few days of diagnostic tests before rolling down a ramp to explore an area of Mars known as Utopia Planitia. It will join an American rover that arrived at the red planet in February.
China's first Mars landing follows its launch last month of the main section of what will be a permanent space station and a mission that brought back rocks from the moon late last year.
Sols 3122-3123: Smooth Planning, but Not the Rocks! – NASA's Mars Exploration Program
In contrast to the last time I contributed a blog, today was a smooth planning session. Our weekend science activities and drive executed flawlessly and the workspace was dominated by bedrock. A significant proportion of the surface was rough-textured with small, wind-resistant knobs and bumps, as well as larger resistant areas associated with veins that cross-cut the bedrock. We have been seeing a lot of these more erosion-resistant features on and around Mont Mercou.
As the APXS strategic planner I was ready to suggest targets for investigation with our instrument (for composition) and for close-up imaging with MAHLI. We chose “Parcoul” a darker, resistant area associated with a vein. It will be interesting to see if it has the same composition as the recent bedrock, or if it appears to have been altered as a result of later fluid-flow associated with the vein.
Happening on Twitter
We're rebuilding the middle class for working people — in the process, we can set ourselves on a path to outcompete… https://t.co/xNL7UcFzEg WhiteHouse (from United States of America) Tue May 18 14:24:46 +0000 2021
Judicial Watch & Daily Caller received 301 pages of emails of Dr. Fauci from HHS showing that NIH officials tailore… https://t.co/rTsmy2j3fz JudicialWatch (from Washington, DC) Tue May 18 04:00:00 +0000 2021
#BREAKING #China releases photos from Tianwen-1 Mars probe after landing https://t.co/67VAZxqO9N https://t.co/H67tt8IDeW CGTNOfficial (from Beijing, China) Wed May 19 10:25:20 +0000 2021
China releases first images from its Zhurong rover on Mars https://t.co/w3U88qu9hg https://t.co/KYbMYUPPpv verge (from New York) Wed May 19 14:29:52 +0000 2021
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