(ORDO NEWS) — China‘s Tianwen-1 probe took a picture of Phobos, the moon of Mars, on its second anniversary.
The image quality is stunning. In the upper left corner of the photo, you can see several fairly noticeable stripes that may indicate relatively recent collisions.
And in the upper right corner of the image is a crater named after the Estonian astronomer Ernst Epik.
China’s interest in Phobos is not new. Initially, China planned to launch its first orbital mission to Mars, known as Yinghuo-1.
Unfortunately, this spacecraft was unable to achieve the required trajectory and fell back to Earth in 2012.
This failure did not stop China. To date, Tianwen-1 is China’s flagship mission to the red planet. Chinese spacecraft are actively collecting new scientific data using instruments installed on rovers, landers and satellites.
These are not the only fantastic photos taken by Tianwen-1. A few months ago, he sent an image of the surface of Mars.
Using the cameras on some of the other components, he even managed to take a few selfies above the red planet. Its lander and rover were also photographed by NASA‘s HiRISE camera.
—
Online:
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.