Dangerous Mars. Something happened to the Chinese rover: scientists can’t “wake it up”

So far, Chinese scientists have tried to wake the Zhurong rover from the sleep mode it changed last May to survive the dangerous Martian winter. The South China Morning Post writes that scientists don’t yet know what happened to the rover, but there are some guesses.

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So far, Chinese scientists have not received a signal from the Zhurong rover that indicates the device has successfully wintered on Mars and has come out of sleep mode. The device switched to this mode to survive the harsh winter in May last year because very low temperatures and severe dust storms can damage both solar panels and devices.

But the rover was supposed to wake from sleep mode at the end of December, but that didn’t happen. Broadcast sources said that no signals were received from the rover and that Chinese scientists are trying to understand what happened to the spacecraft.

According to anonymous sources, scientists believe severe dust storms are responsible, which covered the rover’s four solar panels with a large layer of dust. Therefore, the machine is not getting enough power to recharge its batteries.

According to Chinese scientists, the rover should wake from sleep mode when the battery power level is 140 watts and the ambient temperature is at least 15 degrees below zero.

Now scientists have decided to use the Tianwen-1 orbiter to take pictures from rover space to understand the reason for its very long sleep. But even with that, problems arose as scientists still couldn’t get data from orbit.

Although the ultimate fate of the rover is still unknown, Zhurong has already far exceeded all scientists’ expectations. He landed on the Plain of Utopia in May 2021 and was initially only 3 months old. But later the mission was extended, and during the year of travel on Mars, the apparatus traveled almost 2 km, surveying the region. Thanks to this rover, scientists have discovered traces of great floods millions of years ago on Mars, which is now desolate and cold. The scientists hoped that after waking, Zhurong would continue south and visit what is thought to be an ancient ocean on Mars.

According to Chinese scientists, the rover’s solar panels are designed to withstand the adverse effects of Martian dust. The rover did not survive, however, as too much dust accumulated on its panels. Also, the level of sunlight falling on solar panels in winter on Mars has already decreased. Broadcast sources believe that all this can disable the device.

China became the second country after the USA to land its own spacecraft on the Red Planet with the Zhurong spacecraft sent to Mars. And now two NASA navigators, Curiosity and Perseverance, continue to work there.

Meanwhile, as mentioned earlier FocusThe NASA InSight lander has recently stopped its work on Mars just because of the dust accumulated on it.

same Focus He wrote that the best scientists in China were dying at an alarming rate. This may be due to the lifting of strict restrictions to combat the spread of Covid-19.