ISLAMABAD (PEN) : China’s asteroid probe Tianwen-2 has captured images of the Earth and moon, which the China National Space Administration (CNSA) released on Tuesday.
The CNSA said that the narrow-field-of-view navigation sensor equipped on the probe recently captured the images of Earth and the moon, demonstrating good functional performance.
Tianwen-2 probe captured the image of the Earth when it was about 590,000 km away, May 30, 2025. /CNSA
Tianwen-2 probe captured the image of the moon when it was about 590,000 km away, May 30, 2025. /CNSA
The images released include a photograph of Earth obtained by Tianwen-2 when it was approximately 590,000 kilometers away from the planet, as well as a new photograph of the moon captured when it was about the same distance from the moon. After the images were transmitted back to the ground, they were processed and produced by scientific researchers.
As of Tuesday morning, the Tianwen-2 probe had been operating smoothly in orbit for over 33 days, reaching a distance of more than 12 million kilometers from Earth, according to CNSA.
China launched its first asteroid sample-return mission, Tianwen-2, on May 29, an endeavor to shed light on the formation and evolution of asteroids and the early solar system.
The Tianwen-2 mission aims to achieve multiple goals over a decade-long expedition: collecting samples from the near-Earth asteroid 2016HO3 and exploring the main-belt comet 311P, which is more distant than Mars.
