Noi monede comemorative din China - 26.08.2021

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China is taking the conquest of space very seriously and wants to record, for posterity, its first and successful mission to orbit and land on Mars with the issuance of a new series of commemorative coins.


The People's Bank of China has announced that it will issue coins dedicated to the Tianwen-1 mission on Monday, August 30, three months after China's first Mars rover, the Zhu Rong rover, began exploring the red planet. Each of the three coins will represent three different moments in the historic 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 vast plain located in the northern hemisphere of the Red Planet. A week later, the six-wheeled Zhurong exited the lander to begin looking for traces of water and analyzing the composition of the Martian regolith (soil).

The rover has completed its primary mission of 90 Martian days (about 92 Earth days) and has begun operations on the surface. To date, Zhurong has covered almost 914 meters, during which he has explored dunes, studied rocks and sent images of the descent equipment that helped him land safely on Mars. 

The first of the three new commemorative coins, a 2,000-yuan 150-gram face and pure gold coin, represents some of the equipment used in the mission, such as the Tianwen-1's rear shell and the supersonic parachute. The 60mm diameter coin also shows images of the surface of Mars that were taken during the landing, and of the rover and lander as they were.

A smaller gold coin, 8 grams in weight, 22 mm in diameter and 100 yuan face, is engraved with an image of the Zhurong rover deployed on the Martian surface.

The third coin is silver, is 40 mm in diameter, contains 30 grams of pure silver, and has a face value of 10 yuan. Its reverse features the Tianwen-1 mission orbiter circling Mars with planet Earth in the background.

All three coins bear the inscriptions: "Success of China's First Mars Exploration Mission • Tianwen-1", in Chinese, and share a common design on the obverse showing the logo for China's planetary exploration program. All are dated 2021 and identify the mission's target planet, Mars.

A total of 1,000 large gold coins, 30,000 smaller gold coins and 60,000 silver coins will be available for purchase in China from August 30 at prices yet to be determined.

 

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