China’s Zhurong rover has peered under the surface of Mars and has found evidence of two huge floods that shaped the landscape.

October 3, 2022

Since May 2021, Zhurong has been exploring Utopia Planitia, in Mars’s northern hemisphere.
Images from the rover’s ground-penetrating radar found layered patterns under the surface, which are made of sedimentary rocks carried in by two major floods around 1.6 billion years ago.
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, and local weather conditions using its six scientific instruments.
Zhurong has already completed its primary mission of 90 sols. But the rover is continuing its way to the south of its landing site, collecting data as it goes.