China drives its rover on the surface of Mars
An image taken by the navigation camera of China's Zhurong rover on the surface of Mars when it landed on May 15th. | Photo by CNS/CNSA/AFP via Getty Images China became the second country to successfully deploy a vehicle on Mars on Saturday, and the first to do so on its inaugural visit to the Red Planet. Reuters reported that the solar-powered Zhurong rover drove down the ramp of its landing capsule on to the surface of Mars at about 10:40 AM Beijing time.
Zhurong first landed on Mars earlier this month and started its journey on Mars' surface on Utopia Planitia, a smooth plain where NASA's Viking 2 lander touched down in 1976. That's more than 1,200 miles from the Jezero Crater where the US rover Perseverance touched down in February. A third rover, NASA's Curiosity, which landed on Mars in 2012, was spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter climbing up Mars' Mont Mercou last month, S...