It’s been months since China’s Zhurong Mars rover entered a “hibernation” to wait out the cold and harsh winter on planet&nbsp;Mars’ northern hemisphere and its alien landscape. However, the slumber which was planned to end in December of last year still continues. Now the question is, will the rover ever wake up? There’s still hope.

What is Zhurong?

Zhurong is part of Tianwen 1, China’s ambitious Mars mission, and the nation’s first interplanetary mission. The mission, which includes a Mars rover, touched down on the Red Planet’s Utopian Planitia in May of the year 2021.

Watch |&nbsp;This study suggests ancient Mars was also hit by climate change

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Why is a rover ‘sleeping’?&nbsp;

Following its landing, it conducted a range of scientific and exploration activities before retreating into a so-called hibernation or dormant state to survive the barren planet’s winter, during which, as per space.com, temperatures can fall down to minus 195 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 125 degrees Celsius).&nbsp;

It went to sleep on May 18 of last year.

What conditions are needed for it to wake up?

Talking to reporters in September 2022, Jia Yang, a Tianwen 1 mission deputy chief designer, revealed that Zhurong would wake up by itself when two conditions are met: it can generate energy greater than 140 watts and the planet’s temperature, or rather the region where the rover is, reaches the somewhat warmer, 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 degrees Celsius).

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/science/men-are-from-mars-women-are-from-venus-which-one-should-humans-visit-first-520603">'Men are from Mars, women are from Venus', which planet should humans visit first?</a>

When was it supposed to rise up again?

Zhurong slumber was expected to end in December when the red planet experiences its spring equinox. However, this did not happen. So far, it’s just silence.

What went wrong?

As per a January 9 report by Space News, China’s first interplanetary mission may be in trouble “with the rover potentially lost on the surface after winter hibernation”. There is also speculation that maybe the temperatures just aren’t warm enough.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/trending/humans-yet-to-set-foot-on-mars-yet-the-red-planet-is-already-littered-with-7000-kgs-of-our-trash-519541">Humans yet to set foot on Mars, but the red planet is already 'littered' with 7000 kg of our trash</a>

What is the temperature on Mars currently?

As per NASA’s Perseverance Rover, which is also wandering Mars’s surface, the temperature in the planet’s Jezero Crater has only briefly risen higher than Zhurong’s lowest heat requirement.&nbsp;

But given that Perseverance is nearer to the red planet’s equator - located around seven degrees latitude south of its Chinese counterpart - it may be experiencing slightly more favourable conditions than Zhurong.

How is Perseverance awake?

NASA's 2020 rover Perseverance, meanwhile, is not asleep. It is nuclear-powered and doesn’t need to hibernate.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/science/mars-sample-collection-risks-bringing-to-earth-deadly-alien-virus-heres-what-you-should-know-478730">Mars sample collection risks bringing to Earth deadly alien virus. Here's what you should know</a>

What else could be plaguing the Chinese rover?

Zhurong generates its power using solar arrays. Mars is known for its sand storms and there is concern that the dust from them may be hindering the rover and its solar arrays’ ability to generate power.

While Zhurong’s panels are made using anti-dust material and it has a vibration setting to shake off the dust, even that feature requires some power. The rover has to be active to “shake it off”.

What now?

The rover's mission with which China achieved the status of being the second country to reach the surface of Mars is already a great success.

But only time can tell if it will wake up to achieve bigger and better things.

(With inputs from agencies)

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It’s been months since China’s Zhurong Mars rover entered a “hibernation” to wait out the cold and harsh winter on planet Mars’ northern hemisphere and its alien landscape.

It’s been months since China’s Zhurong Mars rover entered a “hibernation” to wait out the cold and harsh winter on planet Mars’ northern hemisphere and its alien landscape. However, the slumber which was planned to end in December of last year still continues. Now the question is, will the rover ever wake up? There’s still hope. What is Zhurong? Zhurong is part of Tianwen 1, China’s ambitious Mars mission, and the nation’s first interplanetary mission. The mission, which includes a Mars rover, touched down on the Red Planet’s Utopian Planitia in May of the year 2021. Watch | This study suggests ancient Mars was also hit by climate change Why is a rover ‘sleeping’? Following its landing, it conducted a range of scientific and exploration activities before retreating into a so-called hibernation or dormant state to survive the barren planet’s winter, during which, as per space.com, temperatures can fall down to minus 195 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 125 degrees Celsius). It went to sleep on May 18 of last year. What conditions are needed for it to wake up? Talking to reporters in September 2022, Jia Yang, a Tianwen 1 mission deputy chief designer, revealed that Zhurong would wake up by itself when two conditions are met: it can generate energy greater than 140 watts and the planet’s temperature, or rather the region where the rover is, reaches the somewhat warmer, 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 degrees Celsius). Also read | 'Men are from Mars, women are from Venus', which planet should humans visit first? When was it supposed to rise up again? Zhurong slumber was expected to end in December when the red planet experiences its spring equinox. However, this did not happen. So far, it’s just silence. What went wrong? As per a January 9 report by Space News, China’s first interplanetary mission may be in trouble “with the rover potentially lost on the surface after winter hibernation”. There is also speculation that maybe the temperatures just aren’t warm enough. Also read | Humans yet to set foot on Mars, but the red planet is already 'littered' with 7000 kg of our trash What is the temperature on Mars currently? As per NASA’s Perseverance Rover, which is also wandering Mars’s surface, the temperature in the planet’s Jezero Crater has only briefly risen higher than Zhurong’s lowest heat requirement. But given that Perseverance is nearer to the red planet’s equator - located around seven degrees latitude south of its Chinese counterpart - it may be experiencing slightly more favourable conditions than Zhurong. How is Perseverance awake? NASA's 2020 rover Perseverance, meanwhile, is not asleep. It is nuclear-powered and doesn’t need to hibernate. Also read | Mars sample collection risks bringing to Earth deadly alien virus. Here's what you should know What else could be plaguing the Chinese rover? Zhurong generates its power using solar arrays. Mars is known for its sand storms and there is concern that the dust from them may be hindering the rover and its solar arrays’ ability to generate power. While Zhurong’s panels are made using anti-dust material and it has a vibration setting to shake off the dust, even that feature requires some power. The rover has to be active to “shake it off”. What now? The rover's mission with which China achieved the status of being the second country to reach the surface of Mars is already a great success. But only time can tell if it will wake up to achieve bigger and better things. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Explained | Zhurong's slumber continues for months. Has China's Mars rover fallen 'silent' forever?

The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) which is located in India’s Pune, has detected a radio signal originating from an extremely distant galaxy.

Astronomers from McGill University in Canada and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) are behind the detection of these signals.&nbsp;The findings have been published in the scientific journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.&nbsp;

With the signal travelling across the largest astronomical distance to reach us, this discovery marks a historical point in humanity’s astronomical journey.

“The astronomical distance over which such a signal has been picked up is the largest so far by a large margin. This is also the first confirmed detection of strong lensing of 21 cm emission from a galaxy”, said the IISc in a statement.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/science/indias-venus-orbiter-mission-shukrayaan-to-be-carried-out-in-2031-553521">India's Venus Orbiter Mission 'Shukrayaan' to be carried out in 2031?&nbsp;</a>

The signal reportedly originated from the atomic hydrogen of an ‘extremely’ distant galaxy. As per IISc, atomic hydrogen is the basic fuel required for star formation in a galaxy.

As per the information available on the IISc website, “when hot ionised gas from the surrounding medium of a galaxy falls onto the galaxy, the gas cools and forms atomic hydrogen, which then becomes molecular hydrogen, and eventually leads to the formation of stars. Therefore, understanding the evolution of galaxies over cosmic time requires tracing the evolution of neutral gas at different cosmological epochs.”

The radio signal was reportedly extremely weak.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/science/international-space-station-evaded-three-collision-risks-in-2022-553222">International Space Station evaded three collision risks in 2022</a>

However, it is still significant due to the fact that it is nearly impossible to detect emissions from a distant galaxy using the technology which is currently available. The telescopes currently have limited sensitivity.

“Until now, the most distant galaxy detected using 21 cm emission was at redshift z=0.376, which corresponds to a look-back time – the time elapsed between detecting the signal and its original emission – of 4.1 billion years,” said IISc in its statement.

Here, ‘Redshift’ refers to the change in wavelength of the signal depending on the object’s location and movement. Furthermore, the greater the value of z, the farther the object is.

(With inputs from agencies)

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The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) which is located in India’s Pune, has detected a radio signal originating from an extremely distant galaxy. Astronomers from McGill University in Canada and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) are behind the detection of these signals.

The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) which is located in India’s Pune, has detected a radio signal originating from an extremely distant galaxy. Astronomers from McGill University in Canada and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) are behind the detection of these signals. The findings have been published in the scientific journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. With the signal travelling across the largest astronomical distance to reach us, this discovery marks a historical point in humanity’s astronomical journey. “The astronomical distance over which such a signal has been picked up is the largest so far by a large margin. This is also the first confirmed detection of strong lensing of 21 cm emission from a galaxy”, said the IISc in a statement. Also read | India's Venus Orbiter Mission 'Shukrayaan' to be carried out in 2031? The signal reportedly originated from the atomic hydrogen of an ‘extremely’ distant galaxy. As per IISc, atomic hydrogen is the basic fuel required for star formation in a galaxy. As per the information available on the IISc website, “when hot ionised gas from the surrounding medium of a galaxy falls onto the galaxy, the gas cools and forms atomic hydrogen, which then becomes molecular hydrogen, and eventually leads to the formation of stars. Therefore, understanding the evolution of galaxies over cosmic time requires tracing the evolution of neutral gas at different cosmological epochs.” The radio signal was reportedly extremely weak. Also read | International Space Station evaded three collision risks in 2022 However, it is still significant due to the fact that it is nearly impossible to detect emissions from a distant galaxy using the technology which is currently available. The telescopes currently have limited sensitivity. “Until now, the most distant galaxy detected using 21 cm emission was at redshift z=0.376, which corresponds to a look-back time – the time elapsed between detecting the signal and its original emission – of 4.1 billion years,” said IISc in its statement. Here, ‘Redshift’ refers to the change in wavelength of the signal depending on the object’s location and movement. Furthermore, the greater the value of z, the farther the object is. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

India-based telescope detects faint radio signal from an extremely distant galaxy

NASA’s largest and most powerful space science telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made the groundbreaking discovery of a planet that is around 99 per cent the size of Earth. It is located in the constellation Otans, and is just 41 light years away from our home planet. The newly discovered exoplanet has formally been classified as LHS 475 b., and currently not much is known about its atmosphere and whether it is fit to be inhabited by humans. While researchers have ruled out a thick methane-dominated atmosphere similar to that of Saturn’s moon Titan, they say that atmospheric compositions like a pure carbon dioxide atmosphere have not been ruled out.

Watch |&nbsp;NASA's Dart mission: The world's first planetary defence

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The newly discovered space object has been classified as an exoplanet as it orbits another star and is terrestrial, i.e., it is a rocky planet, composed primarily of silicate rocks or metals. As per a Daily Mail report, it completes the orbit in two days.

IANS reports that the planet is a few hundred degrees warmer than Earth.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/trending/rare-treat-for-skywatchers-all-solar-system-planets-visible-to-the-naked-eye-547558">Rare 'treat' for skywatchers: All solar system planets visible to the naked eye</a>

As per the team behind this discovery, the James Webb telescope has proven just how powerful its technology is. Talking to the press, Mark Clampin, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, said that the find opens the door “to many future possibilities for studying rocky planet atmospheres with Webb.”

He remarked that the telescope “is bringing us closer and closer to a new understanding of Earth-like worlds outside our solar system, and the mission is only just getting started.”&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

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NASA’s largest and most powerful space science telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made the groundbreaking discovery of a planet that is around 99 per cent the size of Earth.

NASA’s largest and most powerful space science telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made the groundbreaking discovery of a planet that is around 99 per cent the size of Earth. It is located in the constellation Otans, and is just 41 light years away from our home planet. The newly discovered exoplanet has formally been classified as LHS 475 b., and currently not much is known about its atmosphere and whether it is fit to be inhabited by humans. While researchers have ruled out a thick methane-dominated atmosphere similar to that of Saturn’s moon Titan, they say that atmospheric compositions like a pure carbon dioxide atmosphere have not been ruled out. Watch | NASA's Dart mission: The world's first planetary defence The newly discovered space object has been classified as an exoplanet as it orbits another star and is terrestrial, i.e., it is a rocky planet, composed primarily of silicate rocks or metals. As per a Daily Mail report, it completes the orbit in two days. IANS reports that the planet is a few hundred degrees warmer than Earth. Also read | Rare 'treat' for skywatchers: All solar system planets visible to the naked eye As per the team behind this discovery, the James Webb telescope has proven just how powerful its technology is. Talking to the press, Mark Clampin, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, said that the find opens the door “to many future possibilities for studying rocky planet atmospheres with Webb.” He remarked that the telescope “is bringing us closer and closer to a new understanding of Earth-like worlds outside our solar system, and the mission is only just getting started.” (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Earth 2.0: NASA's James Webb telescope discovers a nearly Earth-sized exoplanet

The most powerful telescope ever launched into space is nearing the end of a meticulous assembly process that has kept astronomers on edge for weeks.

Since its Christmas morning launch, the James Webb Space Telescope has made all the right moves. Now it is entering the final stretch of its complex deployment phase.

In these terminal steps, two panels on either side of the telescope’s array of 18 gold-plated hexagonal mirrors, folded back during launch, must snap into place to complete Webb’s honeycomb-like reflector. The 21-foot-wide mirror sends light from the cosmos into a secondary mirror, which then bounces the light into the telescope’s main infrared sensor.

Unfolding the mirrors is a crucial milestone along the way to using the telescope for scientific studies of the Big Bang, exoplanets, black holes and our solar system. Once it is complete, NASA considers the telescope “fully deployed.”

When will the Webb telescope finish unfolding and how can I watch it?

The telescope’s unfolding phase is expected to wrap up Saturday morning, after the mirror segment’s right-side panel of its three remaining mirrors is secured into place. The left side completed its deployment Friday, a process that took 5 1/2 hours.

On Saturday, engineers will command the telescope to release a set of latches that held the panel in place during launch. Then, for about five minutes, the panel will slowly swing open so that the three hexagonal mirrors tessellate snugly with the other 15.

During the operation, NASA will host a livestream on NASA TV and YouTube beginning at 9 a.m. Eastern time Saturday. It will show mission managers monitoring the deployment from the flight control room of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, the telescope’s central operations hub. Deployment is expected to end a few hours later, around 1:30 p.m.

But you won’t be able to see what’s happening on the telescope itself.

Why aren’t there cameras on the telescope?

Rockets and some spacecraft carry built-in cameras so engineers on Earth can monitor their behavior in space. So, one would expect engineers to pack cameras aboard the James Webb Space Telescope, the most expensive and technically complex observatory ever launched to space, with 344 “single points of failure.”

Think again.

There are no monitoring cameras on the telescope. Instead, engineers depend on switches, sensors and motors to track its health during deployment.

NASA ditched the idea of including surveillance cameras on Webb because of technical complexities and risk. The telescope’s novel size and shape — with one side of its sunshield deflecting enormous amounts of heat and sunlight and the other instrument-heavy side basking in frigid darkness — would require multiple custom-built cameras. Wires and mounts for those cameras would add weight and risk to an already heavy telescope, the agency explained in a blog post.

“It’s not as straightforward as adding a doorbell cam or even a rocket cam,” said Paul Geithner, NASA’s deputy project manager for the technical side of the Webb program.

What has happened to the telescope so far?

Since Webb’s launch, engineers have completed over a dozen main steps in the deployment phase to bring the telescope to its final form, involving hundreds of moving parts such as switches, motors, pulleys and cables. The process began less than 30 minutes after launch last month, when Webb’s solar array deployed — the only step caught on video as the telescope parted ways in space with its rocket, which had an onboard camera.

The telescope has passed a number of milestones since, doing well to defuse astronomers’ anxiety and quell fears that a structure as intricate as Webb was bound to run into snags along its million-mile trek to the place in space where it will stay. The telescope powered on, deployed antennas, mechanically unfolded various limbs and, in the most technically complex milestone, delicately stretched taut five layers of a tennis-court-size plastic sheet designed to shield the telescope’s ultrasensitive camera sensors from the sun’s heat.

Why is the telescope so important to scientists?

The Webb telescope was designed to probe a crucial stretch of early cosmic history, known to astronomers as the dark ages.

Cosmologists surmise that the first stars appeared when the universe was only about 100 million years old. (Today it is 13.8 billion years old.) The farthest and earliest galaxy seen by astronomers, using the Hubble Space Telescope, dates to when the universe was older, 400 million years after the Big Bang. What happened during those intervening 300 million years when the universe took luminous flight, how the Big Bang turned into a sky full of constellations and life, is a mystery.

The telescope will also help astronomers better study supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies and planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy.

To achieve these scientific observations, the Webb telescope relies on a primary mirror 6.5 meters in diameter, compared with the mirror on the Hubble, which is 2.4 meters. That gives it about seven times as much light-gathering capability and thus the ability to see further into the past.

Another crucial difference is that it is equipped with cameras and other instruments sensitive to infrared, or “heat,” radiation. The expansion of the universe causes the light that would normally be in visible wavelengths to shift into longer infrared wavelengths normally invisible to human eyes.

Engineers had to invent 10 new technologies along the way to make the telescope more sensitive than the Hubble. Over-optimistic schedule projections, occasional development accidents and disorganized cost reporting dragged the timeline out to 2021 and ballooned the overall cost to $10 billion. 
&nbsp;

The most powerful telescope ever launched into space is nearing the end of a meticulous assembly process that has kept astronomers on edge for weeks. Since its Christmas morning launch, the James Webb Space Telescope has made all the right moves.

The most powerful telescope ever launched into space is nearing the end of a meticulous assembly process that has kept astronomers on edge for weeks. Since its Christmas morning launch, the James Webb Space Telescope has made all the right moves. Now it is entering the final stretch of its complex deployment phase. In these terminal steps, two panels on either side of the telescope’s array of 18 gold-plated hexagonal mirrors, folded back during launch, must snap into place to complete Webb’s honeycomb-like reflector. The 21-foot-wide mirror sends light from the cosmos into a secondary mirror, which then bounces the light into the telescope’s main infrared sensor. Unfolding the mirrors is a crucial milestone along the way to using the telescope for scientific studies of the Big Bang, exoplanets, black holes and our solar system. Once it is complete, NASA considers the telescope “fully deployed.” When will the Webb telescope finish unfolding and how can I watch it? The telescope’s unfolding phase is expected to wrap up Saturday morning, after the mirror segment’s right-side panel of its three remaining mirrors is secured into place. The left side completed its deployment Friday, a process that took 5 1/2 hours. On Saturday, engineers will command the telescope to release a set of latches that held the panel in place during launch. Then, for about five minutes, the panel will slowly swing open so that the three hexagonal mirrors tessellate snugly with the other 15. During the operation, NASA will host a livestream on NASA TV and YouTube beginning at 9 a.m. Eastern time Saturday. It will show mission managers monitoring the deployment from the flight control room of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, the telescope’s central operations hub. Deployment is expected to end a few hours later, around 1:30 p.m. But you won’t be able to see what’s happening on the telescope itself. Why aren’t there cameras on the telescope? Rockets and some spacecraft carry built-in cameras so engineers on Earth can monitor their behavior in space. So, one would expect engineers to pack cameras aboard the James Webb Space Telescope, the most expensive and technically complex observatory ever launched to space, with 344 “single points of failure.” Think again. There are no monitoring cameras on the telescope. Instead, engineers depend on switches, sensors and motors to track its health during deployment. NASA ditched the idea of including surveillance cameras on Webb because of technical complexities and risk. The telescope’s novel size and shape — with one side of its sunshield deflecting enormous amounts of heat and sunlight and the other instrument-heavy side basking in frigid darkness — would require multiple custom-built cameras. Wires and mounts for those cameras would add weight and risk to an already heavy telescope, the agency explained in a blog post. “It’s not as straightforward as adding a doorbell cam or even a rocket cam,” said Paul Geithner, NASA’s deputy project manager for the technical side of the Webb program. What has happened to the telescope so far? Since Webb’s launch, engineers have completed over a dozen main steps in the deployment phase to bring the telescope to its final form, involving hundreds of moving parts such as switches, motors, pulleys and cables. The process began less than 30 minutes after launch last month, when Webb’s solar array deployed — the only step caught on video as the telescope parted ways in space with its rocket, which had an onboard camera. The telescope has passed a number of milestones since, doing well to defuse astronomers’ anxiety and quell fears that a structure as intricate as Webb was bound to run into snags along its million-mile trek to the place in space where it will stay. The telescope powered on, deployed antennas, mechanically unfolded various limbs and, in the most technically complex milestone, delicately stretched taut five layers of a tennis-court-size plastic sheet designed to shield the telescope’s ultrasensitive camera sensors from the sun’s heat. Why is the telescope so important to scientists? The Webb telescope was designed to probe a crucial stretch of early cosmic history, known to astronomers as the dark ages. Cosmologists surmise that the first stars appeared when the universe was only about 100 million years old. (Today it is 13.8 billion years old.) The farthest and earliest galaxy seen by astronomers, using the Hubble Space Telescope, dates to when the universe was older, 400 million years after the Big Bang. What happened during those intervening 300 million years when the universe took luminous flight, how the Big Bang turned into a sky full of constellations and life, is a mystery. The telescope will also help astronomers better study supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies and planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy. To achieve these scientific observations, the Webb telescope relies on a primary mirror 6.5 meters in diameter, compared with the mirror on the Hubble, which is 2.4 meters. That gives it about seven times as much light-gathering capability and thus the ability to see further into the past. Another crucial difference is that it is equipped with cameras and other instruments sensitive to infrared, or “heat,” radiation. The expansion of the universe causes the light that would normally be in visible wavelengths to shift into longer infrared wavelengths normally invisible to human eyes. Engineers had to invent 10 new technologies along the way to make the telescope more sensitive than the Hubble. Over-optimistic schedule projections, occasional development accidents and disorganized cost reporting dragged the timeline out to 2021 and ballooned the overall cost to $10 billion.

The James Webb Space Telescope finishes unfolding: How to watch

Nasa is all set to launch its biggest telescope into the orbit in a few hours from now. It is also almost a hundred times more powerful than Hubble and will explore the possibilities of life beyond earth.

A new frontier in space exploration