translated from Spanish: The selfie of the Chinese rover on the surface of Mars

China’s National Space Administration (ANEC) today released a panoramic selfie on the Mars surfaces of its rover, the Zhurong, which landed in May, placed a wireless camera on the ground and then stepped back a short distance to take the photo. 

A second image, taken by the rover, shows the platform on its own with the ramp that Zhurong had to descend to reach the surface; and the footprints he left on the Martian soil as he turned around.

Finally, a third image “looks” towards the horizon from the landing site and shows a region known as Utopia Planitia, a vast terrain in the northern hemisphere of Mars.

The Zhurong is part of the Chinese Tianwen-1 mission (whose name can be translated as “heavenly questions” and which was sent into space in July 2020) and, like the current U.S. rovers (Curiosity and Perseverance), has a laser tool to hit rocks and assess their chemistry as well as a radar to look for icy water below the surface. The objective of the mission is to map the morphology and geological structure of Mars, investigate the characteristics of its soil and the distribution of ice, analyze the composition of the material of its surface, measure the ionosphere and the characteristics of climate and environment, and finally study the physical fields (electromagnetic, gravitational) and the internal structure of the planet.

Original source in Spanish