The reporter learned from the Lunar Exploration and Aerospace Engineering Center of the China National Space Administration that at present, the area where the "Zhurong" Mars rover is located has entered winter, similar to our earth, and after entering winter, the sun's illumination height angle in the northern hemisphere region has decreased and the light duration has been shortened. According to the measurements, the maximum temperature at noon in the rover has dropped to -20 °C, and the ambient temperature at night has dropped below -100 °C. In addition, due to the presence of dust weather, the light intensity is further weakened, affecting the power generation capacity of the rover solar wing battery array. Recently, the engineering team has rotated the solar wing to adjust the light angle, reduce the number of daily work items and hours, and achieve energy balance.
Mars has a rotation period close to that of Earth, and a Martian day is only about 40 minutes longer than Earth' length, so Mars also has the same day and night cycle and seasonal changes as Earth. The orbital period of Mars is about 687 days, that is, 1 Martian year is equivalent to 1.9 Earth years, which means that the average duration of each season on Mars is about twice that of Earth.
Over the next two months, the sun's direct point will continue to move toward the south of Mars, reaching near the Tropic of Cancer around mid-to-late July, when the northern hemisphere of Mars will enter the coldest season of the year. In order to safely survive the extreme weather such as the cold winter of Mars and sandstorms, the "Zhurong" rover has designed a working mode such as autonomous hibernation, which will automatically enter the dormant mode after the energy is reduced to a certain extent, and then return to normal working mode after the environmental conditions gradually improve.
The Zhurong rover continued to carry out the expanded patrol and exploration mission after completing the scheduled 90 Mars days of inspection and exploration missions on August 15, 2021. Its navigation terrain camera took images of rocks distributed near impact craters on the Martian surface on April 10, 2022 (323rd Mars Day after landing).
△ Navigation terrain cameras take images of rocks distributed near impact craters on the surface of Mars
During the orbit around Mars, the 7 payloads carried by the "Tianwen-1" orbiter were all turned on, and the global remote sensing exploration of Mars continued to be carried out. A high-resolution camera on April 17, 2022, took an image of the Martian Triole Ring Crater with a resolution of about 0.8 m/pixel, showing "seasonal slope patterns" on the crater wall. A local geomorphological image of the Mariner Valley of Mars taken by a medium-resolution camera on April 1, 2022, with a resolution of about 65 m/pixel.
△ High-resolution camera photograph of the "seasonal slope pattern" of the crater wall of the Triolet crater on Mars
△ Local landforms of Martian Sailor Valley taken by medium resolution cameras
As of May 5, 2022, the "Tianwen-1" orbiter has been in orbit for 651 days, 240 million kilometers away from the earth, and the "Zhurong" rover has worked on the surface of Mars for 347 Martian days, with a cumulative driving of 1921 meters, and the two instruments have accumulated about 940GB of raw scientific data, operating normally.
Source: CCTV News