Not just stars and stripes: the United States is not the only country at the forefront of the study of the planet Martealso there Chinese he’s serious. A clear testimony to this is what is described in the specialized magazine “Geology”, in which there is an article dedicated to the exploration of the Martian subsoil.
It is a specific mission of the former Celestial Empire, the Tianwen-1 which takes advantage of the incredible potential of the rover Zhurong. This last spacecraft was able to identify a series of craters and some extremely interesting geological structures. The photos and details of the discovery inevitably went around the world.
What did the Chinese Mars rover delve into
The rover in question has been on Mars for some time. His landing on the red planet dates back to almost two years ago, to be precise May of 2021: in all these months he has covered a journey of just under two kilometres, moving towards the south and immortalizing rocks, dunes and craters in breathtaking photographic shots. The subsoil is only the last of her insights. Zhurong radar, in fact, sent a few electromagnetic pulses directly into the ground. These same impulses were then reflected by the underground structures. The results were so satisfactory thanks to the use of two distinct frequencies.
The first frequency is the one that also reaches greater depths, up to 80 meters to be precise. The second frequency, on the other hand, does not exceed 4 meters but is capable of finding more detailed and meticulous images. The study of the subsoil is not of extreme interest only for China, the whole world expects a lot from these shots. The goal is to better understand what was the geological history of Mars that still remains an unfathomable mystery. The Asian rover examined shallow craters that were covered in various sediments. However, the facts did not end there.
The surprising subsurface of Mars
For example, water and ice were not present in any way in this part of the subsoil of Mars, a detail certainly not secondary. In fact, it is precisely these elements on which scientists from all over the world focus their attention to understand if they are on the red planet there was or is still life. However, this does not mean that the water is not found in the deepest states, it will be up to Zhurong’s radar to ascertain this eventuality. However, the article published in “Geology” was not limited to this part of the Universe as regards its conclusions.
Information from Mars was compared with that from the Moon, examined with another radar not much different from that of the Chinese rover. The structure of the subsoil appeared different than ever. In fact, in the low Martian depths, walls of impact craters can be seen, as if there had been real bombardments by meteorites. However, all this has not been observed in the Moon: the explanation could concern theatmospherewith that of the red planet rarefied but still existing, while in the Moon it is completely absent.