China’s Zhurong Rover Beams Its First Images Back To Earth

China announced recently that it had successfully landed its lander carrying the Zhurong rover on the Red Planet. It marked a historic moment with China becoming one of only two nations to have successfully landed a rover on Mars. Wednesday, China celebrated the event by sharing the first images the Zhurong rover sent back to Earth.

The image was a black-and-white picture of the rover obstacle avoidance camera and a color image from the rover’s rear navigation camera. That color image is the one seen above. Zhurong is currently operating on the Martian Utopia Planitia, the same region visited by the Viking 2 mission in the 1970s.

In the image, we can see the dark surface of the rover along with the solar panels and white antenna against the reddish surface of Mars. The black-and-white image that China shared showed the lander with its ramps extended to allow the rover to reach the Martian soil.

With Zhurong on the Red Planet, there are now three functioning Rovers on Mars. The other two are NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rover. Perseverance is now getting down to its science operations despite a sixth test flight for the Ingenuity Helicopter in the works.