Chinese rover sends fresh audiovisual content from Mars

Beijing, Jun 27 (EFE).- China’s space exploration vehicle on Mars, Zhurong, has sent fresh videos and photographs from the red planet, which were released on Sunday by the China National Space Administration.

The content includes two photos, three videos and a sound archive.

The still images include a 360-degree panorama shot of the barren and rocky Martian surface and a black and white snapshot of the path traversed by Zhurong, with the landing module of the Tianwen-I space probe in the background

The videos include one showing the landing process on May 15, while the other one features the rover maneuvering itself, with the latter captured from a few meters away by a detachable camera usually installed in the vehicle’s underbody.

In the second video, the camera catches Zhurong – named after the fire god of ancient Chinese mythology – going away after detaching from it.

The sound archive captures the landing platform’s descent from the Tianwen-1 probe to the Martian surface, which took place on May 22.

The CNSA said on its website on Sunday that Zhruong had now been operating on the surface of Mars for 42 Martian days, and has covered a distance of around 236 meters (774 feet).

Zhurong is part of the Chinese mission Tianwen-1, which was sent into space in July last year and whose landing probe reached the surface of the planet on May 15, to the south of the Utopia Planitia plain.

Tianwen-1 (whose name can be translated as “heavenly questions”) is China’s first exploration mission to Mars and the first in history to combine travel, orbit entry and descent into a single mission.

Chinese scientists intend to find more evidence of the existence of water or ice on the planet, as well as carry out research on the material composition of the surface of Mars and the characteristics of its climate. EFE