Question: which of the following country recently became the second nation after the USA to land a rover successfully on the mars?
a) Britain
b) Japan
c) India
d) China
Answer: (d)
Related Facts:-
- On 14 May 2021 China successfully landed its rover upon the surface of the planet Mars.
- After several months orbiting Mars, a Chinese rover successfully touched down on the Martian surface.
- With this remarkable achievement China became the second nation, after the United States, to achieve a soft landing on the red planet.
- The rover, named Zhurong after the Chinese god of fire, is part of China’s Tianwen-1 mission.
- It should be known that Tianwen-1 mission was launched in July 2020.
- The landing is a major milestone for China’s space agency, which has advanced rapidly in just a few decades.
- Few details about the Tianwen-1 mission have been made public.
- Actually the Chinese Mars probe and its accompanying rover are designed to map the Martian surface and search for signs of life on the planet.
- The China National Space Administration said in a statement on 14 May 2021 that the Tianwen-1 spacecraft has functioned normally.
- They said that since its launch last year the spacecraft has collected a huge amount of scientific data.
- The Zhurong rover landed in a region of Mars known as Utopia Planitia.
- Utopia Planitia upon Mars is the vast, icy plain, also where NASA’s now-defunct Viking 2 lander touched down in 1976.
- Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, congratulated China’s space agency shortly after the landing was confirmed.