China has revealed fresh photographs from its Zhurong rover, which started circling Mars in late May. One of the photographs shows Zhurong taking a selfie close to its landing platform. The “touring group photo,” as the China National Space Administration describes it in a blog post, was taken with a small wireless camera that the rover put on the surface before scooting back like an enthusiastic parent to line up for the photograph.
Zhurong also captured a snapshot of the landing platform on its own, which shows the rover's down ramp, the Chinese flag, and, to the left of the flag, the Beijing Winter Olympics mascots.
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More photographs may be found in the Twitter thread linked below, which includes a picture of the Red Planet's horizon beyond the rover, as well as traces on the surface from propellant ejection after landing.
Last month, Zhurong joined NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars, making China the second country to deploy and operate a rover on the planet (albeit the rovers are thousands of kilometers apart). It will continue to explore for roughly 90 days, capturing more photographs while studying the Martian environment and geology.
In April, Perseverance sent along some glamour photographs of its own, but this time it utilized a robotic arm (a selfie stick, if you will) instead of placing a camera down and backing away from it. This is a shot of the rover and its small helicopter friend, Ingenuity, taken by the rover's family. In this blog post featuring videos, NASA explains how the selfie was created.:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22652954/pia24542_perseverances_selfie_with_ingenuity_1041.jpeg)
Perseverance and Ingenuity in a selfie stitched together from 62 individual images.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
And here’s Perseverance’s “face” against the serene panorama of Mars. The planet might be a lonely place, but it makes for a rather scenic backdrop.
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Perseverance gazes into the camera.
Image: NASA / JPL (panorama stitch by Joey Roulette / The Verge)
