CHINA'S MARS MISSION COINS

China is celebrating its first successful mission to orbit and land on Mars with a new set of gold and silver commemorative coins.

The People's Bank of China announced it will issue the limited edition Tianwen-1 coins on Monday (Aug 30), three months after China's first Mars rover, Zhurong, began exploring the Red Planet. The three coins will each depict a different aspect of the history-making mission.

China launched its Tianwen-1 spacecraft in July 2020 and the three-part robotic probe entered orbit around Mars in February. Then on May 14, the lander and rover separated from the orbiter and descended to the surface of Utopia Planitia, a large impact basin on Mars. A week later, the six-wheeled Zhurong rolled off the lander to begin searching for traces of water ice and analyzing the composition of the Martian regolith (soil).

The first of the three new People's Bank of China commemoratives, a 5.3-oz (150-gram) gold coin, depicts some of the same spent mission equipment, including the Tianwen-1 backshell and supersonic parachute. The 2.4-inch (60 mm) coin also shows images of the surface that were taken during the landing and the rover and lander as they appeared when stacked together.

A smaller, 0.3-oz (8-g), 0.90-inch (22-mm) gold coin is engraved with an image of the Zhurong rover deployed on the Martian surface.

The third commemorative, made of 1 oz (30 grams) of silver, measures 1.6 inches (40 mm) and depicts the Tianwen-1 orbiter circling Mars.

To read the complete article, see:
China celebrates its first Mars mission on new gold and silver coins (https://www.space.com/china-tianwen-mars-mission-coins)

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