BEIJING, June 29 (Reuters) – An unmanned Chinese spacecraft has acquired data covering all of Mars, including images of its south pole, after orbiting the planet more than 1,300 times since the beginning of last year, state media reported on Wednesday.
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 was examining 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.
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An image of Mars taken by China’s Tianwen-1 drone is seen in this brochure image published by the National Space Administration of China (CNSA) on June 29, 2022. CNSA / Brochure via REUTERS
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In 2018, an orbiting spacecraft operated by the European Space Agency had discovered water under the ice of the planet’s south pole. Read more
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-kilometer (2,485-mile)-long Marines Valley 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 (59,055-foot) Ascraeus Mons, a large shield volcano first detected by the NASA Mariner 9. spacecraft more than five decades ago.
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Report by Ryan Woo. Editing by Gerry Doyle
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