Tag: Mars lander

On the months of March 2022  the week of 13^th May 2022   天问一号飞運騎遊達达3亿CNSA – China National Space Administration – ESA – European Space agency Belt and road initiative mars mission…first Mars exploration mission, Tianwen- Martian Probe One  and the cute Mars Rover have reportingly to everyone, have a new discovery acquired recently : According to the obtained short-wave infrared spectrum and navigation and terrain camera data, a rocky plate-shaped hard shell was found in the landing area. By analysing the spectral data, it was found that these plate-like crusts similar to sedimentary rocks are rich in minerals such as hydrous sulfate. The research team of scientists deduced that these sulfate-rich crusts may have been formed by lithification after groundwater overflow or capillary evaporation and crystallization of salt minerals cemented the Martian soil. For the first time, water-bearing minerals were detected in situ on Mars using the short-wave infrared spectrometer on the rover…..

The findings suggest that water activity on Mars may have been more active during the Amazonian period than previously thought. My landing zone utopia Planitia and the broad area of ​​the northern plains of Mars may contain large amounts of available water in the form of hydrous minerals for in situ resource utilization for future manned Mars exploration.

As of now, I have been in Utopia in the northern lowlands of Mars. After driving in the plain area for one year, the accumulated driving distance is nearly 2 kilometers, and a large amount of valuable scientific detection data has been obtained. Existing crater dating work shows that the landing zone is located in the Amazonian strata that have undergone late remodelling events, at the end of several major stages of Martian geological age (Pre-Noah, Noah, Occidental, and Amazonian), The climate has changed from warm and humid to cold and dry. Analysis of orbital remote sensing data shows that various geomorphological features distributed around the landing site (Fig. 1) indicate that there may have been a large amount of volatiles in the Utopian Plain. However, limited by the spatial resolution and coverage, orbital remote sensing data did not find water-bearing minerals near the landing area, which raised many questions about the formation mechanism of such landforms and the nature of water activity in the area.

Using short-wave infrared spectroscopy, the researchers detected water-bearing minerals in these bright-colored plate-like rocks that were not identified in the region by previous orbital data, presumed to be water-containing silica or water-containing sulfates (Figure 2). The research team believes that these bright-colored rocks are related to pirates. The broken rock observed in situ by the Mars 1 lander is similar in morphology, and is a layer of locally developed duricrust. However, the hard crust of the Viking 1 landing area is relatively brittle and thin, which may be formed by the long-term interaction of water vapor in the atmosphere and the soil on the surface of Mars. The hard crust of Zhurong’s landing site appears to be more resistant to erosion and forms a thick layer in the surrounding loose soil (Figure 3), which requires large amounts of liquid water, which cannot be formed by atmospheric water vapor alone. At the same time, the study found that there was no obvious surface runoff or traces left by the river in the landing area, and no fluffy surface and salt residues formed by the

(The above research results were published in the international authoritative academic journal Science Advances. The first author and corresponding author of the paper is Liu Yang, a researcher at the National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Link to the paper