On January 1, 2022, the Chinese National Space Agency released four color images of the Tianwen 1 mission to Mars. The wonderful images show the orbiter (a space probe orbiting a celestial body) and part of the Red Planet. The icy region of the north pole of Mars is particularly impressive.
Tianwen-1: Gold from China
Since Elon Musk’s plan to colonize Mars, everyone has fallen for space fever. Time and time again, great information or even photos from space make us citizens of Earth aware of just how much we haven’t yet known or seen. It wasn’t until October 2021 that researchers discovered one of the youngest exoplanets, and they also became aware of the mysterious radio signals. Now the probe has sent pictures of itself and Mars to China’s Tianwen-1 Mars mission. In one photo the orbiter can be seen in full, in another he presses the shutter button himself thus providing a galactic selfie with Mars. The probe glows gold, and Mars appears faint red. For the whole body image, he threw the probe according to the Internet portal FutureZone from a sub-satellite. The images captured by the camera were transmitted by radio to Tianwen-1, who sent them back to Earth.
Tianwen-1: inspired by a poem
By the way, Tianwen-1 is named after a Chinese poem. The poet Qu Yuan (340-278 BC) questions the prevailing astronomical knowledge at the time and asks questions that originally remained unanswered. The Mars mission should now shed light on the darkness. Tianwen-1 is China’s second space probe and consists of an orbiter, a lander and a rover. The probe has been in motion since July 23, 2020. On February 10, 2021, the probe entered orbit around the planet. The Zhurong rover landed on May 14, 2021 at Utopia Planitia, the largest plain on Mars. So far, the mission contains Tianwen-1, according to the Chinese Space Agency CNSA It collects and transfers approximately 540GB of data (as of January 5, 2022) and it doesn’t look like it will stop anytime soon. Orbit, for example, still has enough energy and is in good shape. The rover has also been curving over Mars for about eight months instead of its allotted three. We are looking forward to new photos!