China’s Zhurong Rover:
China’s Zhurong rover has peered under the surface of Mars and has found evidence of two huge floods that shaped the landscape.
- Since May 2021, Zhurong has been exploring Utopia Planitia, in Mars’s northern hemisphere.
- Images from the rover’s ground-penetrating radar found layered patterns under the surface, which are made of sedimentary rocks carried in by two major floods around 1.6 billion years ago.
- China’s Zhurong rover landed in the Utopia Planitia, a 2,000-miles-wide (3,300 kilometers) basin in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, in May 2021.
- Since then, the rover has been studying local geology, chemical composition of rocks, and local weather conditions using its six scientific instruments.
- Zhurong has already completed its primary mission of 90 sols. But the rover is continuing its way to the south of its landing site, collecting data as it goes.
