The Chinese spacecraft Mars, Tianwen-1, was hung around Mars in a parking orbit for almost two months, preparing for the rover’s landing in May.
But it’s not just sitting there in orbit, rotating its antennas. The spacecraft scans the planet, orbits closer, checks the landing location of the mission-chosen rover, and sends back some stunning images of our dusty planetary friend.
On March 16 and 18, the spacecraft took two panoramic photos with its medium-resolution camera of a crescent moon viewed from afar, with the Sun in the background, from a distance of about 11,000 kilometers (6,835 miles).
(CNSA)
From that distance, the surface features are visible, different colors running across the face of Mars, as well as a vaguely blurred outline – the thin but dusty atmosphere of the planet, wrapped around it like a delicate shell.
Mars is the most visited planet in the solar system, but there are many things we do not yet know. With eight orbits in operation today (including Tianwen-1 and the UAE Hope Orbiter, which arrived in February this year), as well as two rovers and a lander, new ones are being discovered all the time.
Tianwen-1 carries a lander and a rover that will reach Utopia Planitia, in the Utopia impact basin in the northern Martian hemisphere. It is a large lava plain, beneath which large amounts of ice have been found and which scientists believe was once home to an ocean before Mars lost its liquid surface water.
Exploring this region, he believes, China’s National Space Administration could provide some vital clues that could help us put together even more of the mysterious history of the planet.
It has not yet been set for landing, but is scheduled for mid-May, according to an address by Chi Wang from the Chinese Academy of Scientists at 2021 Space Science Week.
Once the rover has been dropped, the orbiter will continue to orbit the planet, making its own observations and acting as a communications relay between Earth and Mars.
We hope that in the coming years we will see more pictures of this kind.