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China's Mars rover Zhurong spotted from space by NASA orbiter (photos)
The HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped a shot of China's first-ever Red Planet rover, called Zhurong, on June 6, about three weeks after the wheeled robot touched down.
Science & Tech
A sharp-eyed NASA spacecraft has given us a bird's-eye view of China's first Mars rover.
The HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) snapped a shot of the Chinese rover, called Zhurong, on June 6, about three weeks after the wheeled robot touched down with its stationary lander on the vast Red Planet plain Utopia Planitia.
"Clearly visible are what we interpret as the lander surrounded by a blast pattern, and the rover itself a bit to the south after it descended from the lander," HiRISE team members wrote in a description of the photo, which was released today (June 10).
"This image shows the surrounding terrain to be very typical of southern Utopia Planitia, with a smooth and mostly boulder-free region," they added. "The bright curving features are aeolian (windblown) landforms."