A selfie from Mars, hard to do more original. Zhurong, the rover sent on a mission by the Chinese space agency (CNSA) had succeeded in doing so. Before falling into a long sleep, Zhurong shares a photo from the camera he used to take this selfie.
Four weeks after landing on Mars, on May 14, 2021, Zhurong the Chinese rover managed to take a selfie by placing a camera on the ground, a snapshot he sent to the CNSA, the Chinese space agency, who then revealed it on the Internet. On May 22, 2022, the CNSA released the photo of said camera taken by the rover.
One last image before a long sleep
“The Mars disposable camera captured by the Zhurong Mars rover. Picture 2 [ndlr : le selfie] was caught on camera after she was freed by the rover. It is with these words, shared on his Twitter account May 22, 2022, that the CNSA unveiled for the very first time an image of the camera (remotely controlled by WiFi) used by the rover during its selfie. The image was taken by the camera aboard Zhurong shortly after landing on Mars, but had not yet been shown to the general public. Zhurong’s first anniversary on Mars seems to have been the time to air it.
On March 15, 2021, the Chinese rover finally landed on Martian soil. For the first time in its history, China has become present on the planet Mars. The landing platform deposited the Zhurong rover, which then completed its first wheel rotations. More than a year later, on May 20, 2022, the CNSA announced that the Mars rover Zhurong is entering the standby phase, waiting for the end of a dust storm on the surface of the red planet.
The latest images taken by cameras aboard China’s Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter show a dust storm passing over the Zhurong patrol area. Scientists compared them to photos taken over the past two months and analyzed recent energy data from the rover’s solar wings, which indicate that Zhurong is currently braving an intense Martian dust storm.