Chinese national flags are on Mars!

A remote camera captured Zhurong next to its landing platform on the Red Planet

A sharp-eyed NASA spacecraft has given us a birds-eye view of China's first Mars  rover. The Chinese rover which is called "Zhurong" is snapped by NASA's HiRISE camera abroad Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter(MRO).

The HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this photo of China's Mars rover Zhurong (lower bright spot) and its lander on June 6, 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL/UArizona)

The four pictures released by the China National Space Administration also show the upper stage of the Zhurong rover and the view from the rover before it rolled off its platform.

Zhrong placed a remote camera about 10 meters(33 feet)from the landing platform, then withdrew to take a group portrait the CNSA said.

China landed the Tianwen-1 spacecraft carrying the rover on Mars last month after it spent about three months orbiting the red planet. China is the second country to land and operate a spacecraft on Mars, after the United Sates of America.

The orbiter and lander both display small Chinese flags and the lander has outlines of the mascots for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

The six-wheeled rover is surveying an area known at Utopia Planitia, especially searching for signs of water or ice that could lend clues as to whether Mars ever sustained life.

Source: Euronews.com & Space.com