China ’s Zhurong rover is currently in safe modality as it waits out a Martian dust storm , according to Chinese province - run media , and it may remain in safe manner until the end of 2022 .
Zhuronglanded on Mars a year agothis month ; since then , the rover has recordedvideo and audiofrom a wholesale lava knit stitch called Utopia Planitia , over 1,000 miles from NASA ’s Perseverance rover .
Zhurong ’s initial deputation was just 90 years , but since then the rover has continued to study the Martian control surface and atmosphere . The bird of passage was also drive into a safe mode in September 2021 , when asolar continuative disruptedcommunications between Earth - base space agencies and all Martian spacecraft . Now , the issue is not with the question of heavenly bodies but with local extreme weather .
The Zhurong rover in a self-portrait taken in June 2021.Image:China National Space Administration
It ’s recently become winter in Utopia Planitia , and the status are coarse even without the dust violent storm . The China National Space Administration ( CNSA)told country - run medium Xinhuathat daytime temperatures could go below -4 degrees Fahrenheit , and nighttime temperatures could be a cog - chill -148 degrees Fahrenheit . The agency stated that Zhurong wo n’t awaken up for a while — probably December , when the Martian spring returns , according to Xinhua .
Utopia Planitia ’s knit , like much of Mars , is cold , making space vehicle on its aerofoil susceptible to the massive storms kicked up by Martian nothingness . Such storms can be pernicious to the Martian space vehicle that rely on solar business leader ; the tempest can blot out sunlight for months .
A 2018 dust stormled to the end of NASA ’s chance rover military mission . In January this class , theInSight lander was forced into safe modeby a similar storm ; though it survived , rubble surface the lander ’s solar panel signify the space vehicle is operating on borrow time andprobably will be decommissioned by the oddment of the class .
Dust accumulations on NASA’s InSight lander, covering its solar panels.Image:NASA/JPL-Caltech
Zhurong is expected to address the ongoing storm with proportional ease , though , and its safe mode is more a precaution than a desperate measure . In the meantime , CNSA ’s Tianwen-1 Mars artificial satellite will stay to supervise the Martian atmosphere for any alteration — for unspoiled or for bad — in the Red Planet ’s weather .
More : mammoth Dust Towers on Mars Could Explain How the Red Planet Lost its Water
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