China Mars mission data offers evidence for ancient ocean - Space.com

The Tianwen 1 orbiter and Zhurong rover have been hard at work.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has revealed new data from its Tianwen 1 Mars orbiter and Zhurong Mars rover, according to a report from state-run media network CGTN. .

The rover and the lander reached the surface of Mars three months later, on May 14, and the rover has so far traversed 6,302 feet (1,921 meters). .

Now, CGTN reports that CNSA has announced that the orbiter and rover have sent back 1,480 gigabytes of raw data — some of which supports the hypothesis that an ancient ocean once existed in the Utopia Planitia, the vast Martian plain that Zhurong is exploring.

Related: China's Mars rover Zhurong just snapped an epic self-portrait on the Red Planet (photos).

— Tracks of China's Zhurong Mars rover spotted by NASA orbiter (photo).

CNSA said that its scientists have been studying "the relationship between the density of rocks on the Martian surface and the degree of surface erosion, the distribution of ions and neutral particles in the near-Mars space environment and the gravity field of Mars," according to CGTN.

Studies based on data from Tianwen 1 and Zhurong have already been published in Nature Astronomy, (opens in new tab) Nature Geoscience (opens in new tab), and Science Advances, CNSA noted. !