BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese unmanned spacecraft has received data covering images covering the entire Mars, including visual 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 reached the Red Planet in February 2021 during the country’s inaugural mission there. Since then, a robotic rover has been stationed on the surface while an orbiter explores the planet from space.
Among the images taken from space were the first images of China at the south pole of Mars, where almost all water resources on the planet are locked.
In 2018, an orbital probe operated by the European Space Agency discovered water under the ice at the planet’s south pole.
Finding groundwater is key to determining the planet’s potential for life, as well as providing a permanent resource for any human exploration there.
Other images of Tianwen-1 include images of the 4,000-kilometer (2,485-mile) long Valles Marineris canyon and impact craters from highlands in northern Mars known as Arabia Terra.
Tianwen-1 also sent back high-resolution images of the edge of the huge Maunder Crater, as well as a top-down view of the 18,000-meter (59,055-foot) Ascraeus Mons, a large shield volcano first discovered by NASA’s Mariner 9. spaceship more than five decades ago.
(Report by Ryan Wu. Edited by Gary Doyle)
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