China’s first Zhurong Mars rover with its landing pad. /CNSA
China’s first Zhurong Mars rover with its landing pad. /CNSA
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) released a batch of scientific research results from its first Mars exploration mission on Sunday.
The Tianwen-1 orbiter had been operating for 780 days and the Zhurong rover had traveled 1,921 meters on the red planet’s surface as of Thursday, according to CNSA’s Lunar Space Program and Exploration Center.
Both the orbiter and the rover have completed directed science exploration missions and acquired 1,480 gigabytes of raw science data, the center said.
Using data collected by Zhurong, Chinese scientists revealed the relationship between the formation of geological features and water activities on Mars by conducting a comprehensive study of these geological features in the landing area.
Geomorphology of impact craters, spike cones, grooves and ridges at the landing zone of the Chinese Mars rover Zhurong. /CMG
Geomorphology of impact craters, spike cones, grooves and ridges at the landing zone of the Chinese Mars rover Zhurong. /CMG
Chinese scientists have also found hydrated minerals in saucer-like rocks, a layer of “duricrust”, showing that there has been substantial liquid water activity in the landing zone since the Amazonian period, which was about a billion years ago.
Platy-like rocks and the schematic model of the duricust formation process at the landing zone of China’s Mars rover Zhurong. /CMG
Platy-like rocks and the schematic model of the duricust formation process at the landing zone of China’s Mars rover Zhurong. /CMG
Scientists have also found that the Martian soil has high strength and low friction parameters, which reveals that the place where the rover landed must have experienced wind and possibly water erosion.
Geological features of Mars in the landing zone of the Chinese explorer Zhurong. /CMG
Geological features of Mars in the landing zone of the Chinese explorer Zhurong. /CMG
These results revealed the impact of wind and water activities on the geological evolution and environmental changes of Mars, and supported the hypothesis that there was once an ocean on the utopian Planitia, according to the CNSA .
In addition, Chinese scientists have obtained a series of scientific results on the relationship between the density of rocks on the Martian surface and the degree of surface erosion, the distribution of ions and neutral particles in the space environment near Mars and the gravity field. of Mars
Relevant studies were published in Astronomy of nature, Geoscience of nature i Advances in Science.
Future missions will continue to conduct remote sensing surveys and accumulate scientific data, CNSA said.
The Tianwen-1 probe, consisting of an orbiter, a lander and a rover, was launched on July 23, 2020. On May 15, 2021, it landed at the pre-selected landing zone on Utopia Planitia, a vast plain Martian, it is the first time that China has put a probe on the planet.