China’s first Mars rover has driven down from its landing platform and is now roaming the surface of the red planet, China’s space administration said Saturday.The solar-powered rover touched Martian soil at 10:40am Saturday Beijing time (8:10am IST), the China National Space Administration said.Now I’m “literally” on Mars surface. At UTC 2:40, May 22, #Zhurong (#Tianwen1) Mars Rover drove down to the surface of the red planet from the lander. Here’s the the process captured by both front and rear cameras. First batch of scientific data will be obtained later this month. pic.twitter.com/DfCvAvLmSW— Chinese Zhurong Mars Rover (@MarsZhurong) May 22, 2021China landed the spacecraft carrying the rover on Mars last Saturday, a technically challenging feat more difficult than a Moon landing, in a first for the country. It is the second country to land and operate a spacecraft on Mars, after the United States.Named after the Chinese god of fire, Zhurong, the rover has been running diagnostics tests for several days before it began its exploration Saturday. It is expected to be deployed for 90 days to search of evidence of life.The US also has an ongoing Mars mission, with the Perseverance rover and a tiny helicopter exploring the planet. NASA expects the rover to collect its first sample in July for return to Earth as early as 2031.China has ambitious space plans that include launching a crewed orbital station and landing a human on the moon. China in 2019 became the first country to land a space probe on the little-explored far side of the moon, and in December returned lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the 1970s.It’s Google I/O time this week on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast, as we discuss Android 12, Wear OS, and more. Later (starting at 27:29), we jump over to Army of the Dead, Zack Snyder’s Netflix zombie heist movie. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts. For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on Twitter, Facebook, and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Elon Musk Says He Supports Cryptocurrency in Battle With Fiat Money Related Stories
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