China News Agency, Beijing, September 18. According to the China National Space Administration's Lunar Exploration and Aerospace Engineering Center on the 18th, the scientific research team found water-bearing minerals near the landing area of the "Zhurong" Mars rover, proving that there was a lot of liquid water activity in the landing area.
The scientific research results of China's first Mars exploration mission have revealed the impact of Martian sandstorm and water activities on geological evolution and environmental changes, providing strong support for the conjecture that an ocean once existed in the Utopian plains of Mars.
On September 16, the first seminar on scientific research achievements of Mars exploration mission was held in Beijing in a combination of online and offline methods, aiming to strengthen the exchange of scientific research results of Tianwen-1.
As of September 15, the Tianwen-1 orbiter has been in orbit for more than 780 days, and the rover has traveled a total of 1,921 meters, completed the established scientific exploration mission, and obtained 1,480GB of original scientific exploration data.
The scientific research team has obtained rich scientific results through the study of the first-hand scientific data independently obtained by China.
Through a comprehensive study of typical landforms such as concave cones, barrier craters, and trenches distributed in the landing area, the important connection between the formation of the above-mentioned landforms and water activities has been revealed.
Through camera images and spectral data, water-bearing minerals were found in plate-like hard-shell rocks near the landing area, proving that there has been a large amount of liquid water activity in the landing area since 1 billion years ago (late Amazonian period).
Combined with camera images and rover moving ruts and other information, it is found that the soil in the landing area has strong compressive strength and low friction parameters, which are related to water activity and experience sand erosion.
These new results reveal the impact of Martian aeolian sand and water activities on geological evolution and environmental changes, provide strong support for the conjecture that there was an ocean in the Martian Utopian Plain, and enrich human scientific understanding of Martian geological evolution and environmental changes.
The relevant results have been published in authoritative academic journals at home and abroad such as "Nature Astronomy", "Nature Geoscience", "Science Advances", "Science of China" and so on.
In addition, the scientific research team also used the detection data of Tianwen-1 to obtain a batch of data on the relationship between the rock density on the surface of Mars and the degree of surface erosion, the distribution of ions and neutral particles in the near-fire space environment, and the gravitational field of Mars. Excellent scientific results.
At present, the Tianwen-1 orbiter continues to carry out scientific exploration in the remote sensing mission orbit, continues to accumulate first-hand scientific data, and makes Chinese contributions to human beings' in-depth understanding of Mars.
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