Chinese Rover on Mars Ushers In New Space Race

CHICAGO - Geophysical sciences professor Edwin Kite pores over a steady stream of data and images originating from U.S. and Chinese rovers and crafts simultaneously exploring Mars.

"I am interested in solar system and exoplanet habitability,” Kite explained to VOA from his University of Chicago laboratory. His field of study has traditionally been accomplished using telescopes and analyzing meteors in addition to the few moon rocks returned to Earth by U.S. astronauts who landed there in the 1960s and 70s. But today’s on-the-ground missions exploring Mars are helping him and his colleagues obtain a more direct and complete understanding of the red planet. “You can quickly go through a loop of making a discovery, forming a hypothesis based on that discovery and sending a new spacecraft to test it,” Kite told VOA. “We’ve only scratched the surface of what there is to discover.  We don’t know which country’s investigation is going to stumble over something that unlocks the next stage of exploration.  The more countries doing that exploration, the better, for everyone.”