The Zhurong rover, named after a god of fire in Chinese mythology, landed on the Utopia Planitia region of Mars on May 15. This is China’s first Mars mission — making it only the second country to land a rover on the planet, after the United States.
The rover sent back its first images of Mars in May, several days after landing, showing a deployed ramp and the flat landscape where it arrived.
The new photos this Friday included a 360-degree panorama of the landing area, stitched together from a number of images the rover took after landing before it began driving through the area, according to state-run news agency Xinhua. Another image showed the orange Martian surface, with scattered rocks, a circular crater on the far side, and dunes in the distance.
A third image shows the Chinese flag near the landing platform. The rover also took a selfie using a wireless camera, showing its…
