Named after the "quest for heavenly truth", Tianwen 1, China's first Mars probe (探测器), has given us impressive pictures of the red planet. The first high-resolution (高分辨率的) pictures of Mars taken by Tianwen 1 were made public by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) on March 4.
"These are the first close-up pictures of Mars' surface taken by China, " said Bao Weimin, a scientist of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The pictures were taken at different distances from Mars. The two black-and-white pictures were taken by the high-resolution camera on Tianwen 1 when the probe was about 330-350 kilometers above the Martian surface. As for the color picture, it was taken by Tianwen 1's medium-resolution (中分辨率的) camera when the probe was about 5, 000 kilometers above the red planet. It shows Mars' North Pole.
The high-resolution camera can take both color and panchromatic (全色的) pictures. Panchromatic pictures, which are black and white, are the clearest, having the largest amount of data for scientific study, said Liu Tongjie. The medium-resolution camera, can only produce lesser clear pictures. Scientists put the panchromatic and color pictures together to form a clear and beautiful color picture, Liu added.
Tianwen 1, the country's first independent Mars task, was sent up on July 23, kicking off the nation's planetary exploration program. The probe entered its preset orbit above Mars on Feb 24 and is looking for a landing site on the planet's largest plain. The probe is expected to land on the red planet sometime between May and June.
