3 yıl önce

China releases footage from Mars probe showing red planet

After a six-and-half-month journey through space, the Tianwen-1 became the second spacecraft to reach the planet this month, with a US probe set to arrive and immediately attempt a landing next week.

Reuters

A view as Tianwen-1 probe enters the orbit of Mars in this screen grab obtained from a video on February 12, 2021.

China's space agency has released video footage from its spacecraft circling Mars, two days after it has successfully entered the planet's orbit in Beijing's latest ambitious space mission.

In the video, published by state broadcaster CCTV, the surface of the planet is seen coming into view out of a pitch black sky against the outside of the Tianwen-1, which entered the orbit of the red planet on Wednesday.

White craters are visible on the planet's surface, which fades from white to black through the video as the probe flies over the course of one Martian day, said official news agency Xinhua.

So, here's quite a amazing video of Tianwen-1 passing Mars as it enters orbit (CNSA/PEC) pic.twitter.com/nUbzhizi0O
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) February 12, 2021

Rivalling with US

The five-tonne Tianwen-1 – which translates as "Questions to Heaven" – includes a Mars orbiter, a lander and a solar-powered rover and launched from southern China last July.

It is the latest step in Beijing's space programme, which aims to establish a crewed space station by 2022 and eventually put an astronaut on the moon, and has opened up a new, extraterrestrial arena for US-China competition.

Tianwen-1 launched around the same time as a rival US mission, and is expected to touch down on the surface of the planet in May.

Its success comes the same week as the United Arab Emirates' "Hope" probe also successfully entered Mars' orbit, making history as the Arab world's first interplanetary mission.

Chinese scientists hope to land a 240-kilogramme rover in May in Utopia, a massive impact basin on Mars. Its orbiter will last for a Martian year.

For the three-month study of the planet's soil and atmosphere, the mission will take photos, chart maps and look for signs of past life.

The probe has already sent back its first image of Mars – a black-and-white photo that showed geological features including the Schiaparelli crater and the Valles Marineris, a vast stretch of canyons on the Martian surface.

Mars has proved to be a challenging target, with most missions since 1960, sent by Russia, Europe, Japan and India, ending in failure.

NASA's Perseverance, which is set to touch down on the red planet on February 18, will become the fifth rover to complete the voyage since 1997 – and all so far have been American.

Don’t be fooled: It may seem easy, but there’s nothing routine about landing on Mars. It all comes down to the final seven minutes…

Here’s how you can participate in the #CountdownToMars: https://t.co/lXnsgn7jaK pic.twitter.com/TejPovYUNQ
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 12, 2021