A Chinese spacecraft has acquired data from images covering all of Mars, including images of its south pole, after orbiting the planet more than 1,300 times since early last year, according to state media.
China’s Tianwen-1 successfully arrived on the Red Planet in February 2021 on the country’s inaugural mission there. Since then, a robotic rover has been deployed to the surface while an orbit examines the planet from space.
Among the images taken from space were the first photographs of China from the Martian South Pole, where almost all of the planet’s water resources are blocked.
In 2018, an orbiting spacecraft operated by the European Space Agency had discovered water under the ice of the planet’s south pole.
Locating groundwater is key to determining the life potential of the planet, as well as providing a permanent resource for any human exploration there.
Other images of Tianwen-1 include photographs of the 4,000 km long Marine Valleys Canyon and highland impact craters north of Mars known as Arabia Earth.
Tianwen-1 also sent high-resolution images of the edge of the vast Maunder crater, as well as a top-down view of the 18,000-meter Ascraeus Mons, a large shielded volcano first detected by the Mariner spacecraft. 9 of NASA more than five decades ago. does.