News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Until recently, geochronologist Li Xian-Hua’s research focused on molten rocks on Earth. But when a Chinese spacecraft delivered the country’s first rocks from the Moon in December 2020, Li pivoted to study them. “I’m a new person working on extra-terrestrial rocks,” says Li, who is based at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics (IGG) at … Read more
China’s first Mars rover reveals how weather and ancient water changed the surface of the largest impact basin on Mars. China’s Zhurong rover landed in the Utopia Planitia, a 2,000-miles-wide (3,300 kilometers) basin in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, in May 2021. Since then, the rover has been studying local geology, chemical composition of rocks, … Read more
Time-lapse imaging of Yutu 2 progress across the lunar landscape. (Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University) China’s Yutu 2 rover has returned a view of its path over three years of travels across the harsh environment of the moon’s far side. The new images — released by Ourspace, a Chinese language science outreach channel affiliated with … Read more
The first woman on China’s space station beamed a message to Earth Tuesday (March 8) to celebrate International Women’s Day from orbit. “Dear fellow women, hello, I’m Chinese astronaut Wang Yaping. I’m currently carrying out a six-month mission in the China space station,” Wang said in the video message from aboard the orbiting Tiangong space … Read more
The first reported findings from China’s Mars rover suggest the plain it is exploring was shaped by winds – and perhaps also by water Space 7 March 2022 By Chen Ly China’s first Mars rover Zhurong with the landing platform Xinhua / Alamy China’s Zhurong Mars rover landed at Utopia Planitia – a large plain … Read more
China’s Yutu 2 rover has made yet another curious discovery during its travels on the far side of the moon, this time turning up a pair of translucent glass globules. The rover’s panoramic camera spotted the two glass spheres as it drove across the surface of Von Kármán crater on the far side of the … Read more
Footage from China’s space station shows how its large robotic arm can “crawl” along the outside of the spacecraft. The new video from the Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA) shows the space station’s 33.5-foot-long (10.2 meters) robotic arm rising up from behind the Tianhe module and reaching out to find a docking port in the … Read more
It’s been a year since China’s first-ever independent interplanetary mission reached Mars, and in that time, Tianwen 1 has made major achievements while also delivering a number of surprises. The Tianwen 1 spacecraft entered orbit around the Red Planet on Feb. 10, 2021. Shortly after, the China National Space Administration released epic footage of the … Read more
A prominent Peking University think tank posted a surprisingly frank assessment of China’s technological strengths and weaknesses on 30 January—and took it down less than 1 week later. The report, titled China-US Strategic Competition in Technology: Analysis and Prospects in Mandarin, warns China has more to lose than the United States if technological cooperation between … Read more
Beijing National Stadium and Blue Cube (Image credit: MAXAR) The Winter Olympics of 2022 are here and Maxar Technologies has released satellite images revealing what many of the venues in Beijing and around China look like from space. The winter games are taking place in Beijing, the same host city as the 2008 Summer Olympics. … Read more