China's Tianwen-1 orbiter spacecraft has managed to capture the entirety of the Mars planet via an image. They release several orbiter's images across the surface of Mars.
Planet Volumes via Unsplash
The Tianwen-1 fell into the orbit of the planet in February 2021 and has circled the planet over 1,300 times. It sent 1,040 gigabytes of raw data back to Earth and was processed by scientists.
The images from News18 showed the prominence of craters. But there is an image that captured a stunning view of the Valles Mariners canyon system that is almost as long as the US. The canyons on Mars can read h up to four miles deep.
Some of the data from the Red Planet has also been published in scientific journals. They will also be available to scientists globally.
Currently, the space agency is also working with NASA and ESA to share data with them and warn them about potential collisions with other probes.
The mission of Tianwen-1 is to study the planet, such as its geological structure, morphology, distribution of surface water ice, surface material composition, soil characteristics, atmospheric ionosphere, and surface climate and environment.
Tianwen-1 will also analyze the internal structure and the physical field of the planet. For now, the Tianwen-1 has completed its scientific missions.
It also brought a rover to Mars, the Zhurong, and dropped it into Utopia Planitia, which is a vast field of ancient volcanic rock that may have reserves of water frozen beneath its surface.
Zhurong covered a distance of almost 2kms on Mars after that, it hibernated on May 18 because of the extreme winter weather. The rover will resume its exploration around December during the spring.
The Planet Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and is also the second smallest planet in the Solar System. It is used to describe red color in English. In Roman mythology, Mars is the god of war. Mars is also known as the Red Planet because of the dramatic reddish appearance that the iron oxide on its surface gives the planet. It is named after the Roman god of war.
Mars' atmosphere is very thin. This means that liquid water can only exist underground. The atmosphere is made mostly of carbon dioxide. The pressure of the Martian atmosphere at the surface is also very low.
Mars is not a livable planet, but there might be some primitive life forms. If a human can visit Mars, then it will take about six months to reach the planet.
China is conducting more launches than any other country in the world right now, and is also set to play a key role in the next stage of space exploration.
