Chinese probe Tianwen-1 sent video of Mars

Chinese probe Tianwen-1 sent video of Mars
Chinese probe Tianwen-1 sent video of Mars
Anonim

The Chinese space agency released footage of the spacecraft orbiting Mars on Friday, two days after successfully entering the planet's orbit during Beijing's last space mission.

A video released by state broadcaster CCTV shows the planet's surface emerging from a pitch-black sky against the outside of Tianwen-1, which orbited the Red Planet on Wednesday.

White craters are visible on the planet's surface, which turn black in the video when the probe passes over the course of one Martian day.

The five-ton Tianwen-1 (Questions to Heaven) includes a Mars orbiter, a lander and a solar-powered Mars rover, launched from southern China last July.

It is the latest step in Beijing's space program, which aims to create a crewed space station by 2022 and ultimately send astronauts to the moon, opening up a new, extraterrestrial arena for competition between the United States and China.

Tianwen-1 launched around the same time as the US Perseverance mission, which will dock on the planet's surface in May.

Tianwen-1's success came the same week that 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 the 240kg (530lb) all-terrain vehicle in May on the Utopia Plain, a massive impact basin. The orbiter will last a Martian year.

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

The probe has already sent back its first image of Mars, a black-and-white photo showing geologic features, including Schiaparelli Crater and the Mariner Valley, a vast stretch of canyons on the surface of Mars.

Mars has proven to be a challenging target: since 1960, most missions sent by Russia, Europe, Japan and India have failed.

NASA's Perseverance, which is due to land on the Red Planet on Feb.18, will be the fifth rover to fly since 1997 - and it's all American so far.

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