China's Tianwen-1 mission, currently en route to the planet Mars, has captured an image of Earth and the Moon, seen at around 1.2 million km away.
On July 23, China launched its long-awaited Tianwen-1 mission. Its objective:to place an orbiter around the planet Mars and deploy a rover on the surface. A first for the Chinese space agency. A few days ago, mission leaders pointed the ship's optical navigation sensor at the Earth-Moon system. We then discovered two small crescent-shaped objects, seen at more than 1.2 kilometers away , floating "into the vast universe “, can we read in Xinhua News, the Chinese news agency.
This new shot, taken in black and white, joins a large group of photos taken from our "pale blue dot" from missions like Voyager, Cassini, Mars Express, or still Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Without forgetting, of course, the Apollo missions. The Universe Today website has compiled several of these images visible here.
The mission is normally scheduled to reach the red planet in February 2021. Once in the Martian system, the Chinese rover will remain attached to its orbiter for approximately two months before attempting landing on Utopia Planitia . It is a vast plain extending in the northern hemisphere for about 3,200 km.
As a reminder, only NASA has so far successfully landed craft on Mars – including four rovers – since the late 1990s. The Soviet Union and the European Space Agency have already tried, but all their attempts have unfortunately failed.
Once there, the rover is normally expected to operate for approximately 90 Martian sols. The mission is expected to study the Red Planet's morphology and geological structure, soil characteristics, and surface water ice distribution. it will also be a question of analyzing the atmospheric ionosphere as well as the physical field and the internal structure of the planet.
As a reminder, two other nations took advantage of the favorable alignment between Mars and Earth to launch their mission.
Mars Hope , the first interplanetary probe from the United Arab Emirates, took off on July 19. Its objective will be to better understand the climate and atmosphere of Mars. NASA's Mars 2020 mission took off on July 30. Its objective will be to search for traces of past life on the surface. There are also plans to put some rock samples under seal for future return to Earth.
