Where's Zhurong? China's Mars Rover Hasn't Moved In A While, Orbiter Images Show

There hasn't been much news about China's Zhurong rover on Mars. A series of orbiter images appears to show that it may not have moved in a while.

China's Tianwen-1 mission, which the Zhurong rover is a part of, celebrated its second anniversary earlier this month. However, the nation's space authorities have stayed silent on the status of the rover, Space.com reported. Most of the celebration focused on the mission's achievements thus far.

The team behind the "big and powerful" HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Experiment) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shared a series of photos taken between 2022 and 2023 showing the Chinese rover on the surface of Mars Tuesday.

The left-most image was taken on March 11, 2022, showing the Zhurong as the bluish dot on the upper region of the photo. In the second and third photos, taken on Sept. 8, 2022, and only recently on Feb. 7, 2023, the blue dot of the rover is in the lower-middle area of the photo. In the two more recent photos, it appears that the rover's position hasn't changed.

HiRISE is used to monitor the changes on the surface of Mars, the University of Arizona Lunar & Planetary Laboratory (LPL) explained. It's also used to monitor areas rover tracks to help determine the properties of Mars' surface materials.

Although China has been rather silent about the health of the Zhurong for a while, there have already been questions about its status. In May 2022, the rover went into a state of hibernation because of declining solar power, according to Space.com. It was expected to wake up sometime in December, but authorities have reportedly remained mum on its status.

It's quite possible that the dust storms in the Utopia Plantia may have affected the rover's ability to generate heat and light, the outlet noted. If that is the case, then there is still hope that it may re-activate once Martian winds help clean up its solar arrays.

On the other hand, the Tianwen-1 orbiter and its array of instruments have been quite a success.

"The Tianwen-1 orbiter thoroughly studied the Martian surface," Chinese state media noted during the second anniversary. "Even though it suspended explorations when the sun blocked communications with Earth between September and October 2021, it still offered useful engineering data for Chinese and foreign scientists during that period, and that data has contributed to several notable scientific research results."