He built "the three most precious cars in China" and spent 18 years exploring Mars
In 2013, Chang'e-3 carried the Yutu lunar rover, achieving its first soft landing on the moon; In 2020, China's first Mars exploration mission, the Tianwen-1 probe, was successfully launched; In 2021, the "Zhurong" Mars rover carried by the Tianwen-1 spacecraft successfully landed on Mars... Behind these feats is the "flying dream" of countless Chinese people.
The second season of the first Chinese cutting-edge science and thought show "Future China" was broadcasted on the evening of July 7th on Oriental TV and Anhui TV, and will be broadcasted on Zhejiang TV and Jiangsu TV respectively on July 10th and 11th. The first episode of the show will focus on the deep outer space and reveal the story behind deep space exploration.
A designer who builds cars for the moon and Mars
From the mythical Chang'e flying to the moon to the flying frescoes in the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang, the Chinese nation's "flying dream" has existed since ancient times. In the last century, after China made substantial progress in rocket technology, countless probes began to extend into outer space to realize the Chinese people's "flying dream". The first episode of the second season of "Future China" invited Jia Yang, the deputy chief designer of the Chang'e-3, Chang'e-4, and Tianwen-1 spacecraft, to tell the story of deep space exploration.
Over the course of 18 years, Jia Yang has created "China's three most precious cars", making China the only country to conduct simultaneous inspections and explorations on the moon and Mars. From a young man looking at stars in a small town in Northeast China to a man making cars for the moon and Mars, he chose to carry out "Chinese style romance" to the end. At the beginning of designing a Mars rover, Jia Yang had a persistent idea - to design a powerful and beautiful Mars rover. Adhering to the idea of bringing traditional Chinese culture to Mars, the "Zhurong" Mars rover has been designed as a beautiful blue flashing butterfly. Its "forehead" has a "fire" character written in "Nine Stacked Seal Script" font, and even the two rear wheels are designed with "middle" characters, full of strong Chinese style.
Jia Yang is also a romantic poet. The Rainbow Bay on the moon is the pre selected landing area for the Yutu lunar rover. After completing the preparation work for the launch, he wrote a poem "Rainbow Bay Love" in Xichang, expressing his countless thoughts: "That is a faint rainbow in the sky/waiting quietly on the cool lunar disk/the vicissitudes of time and space/the continuous wind of the intermittent star rain..." Before the Tianwen-1 Mars exploration mission, he also used 189 photos of star orbits to assemble a photo called "The Stars in the Sky Can Speak". The orbit in the photo corresponds to the Morse code, which translates to "Tianwen-1".
Decoding scientific knowledge with a youthful voice
In this program, Hong Chenyao, a graduate of Imperial College of Technology, clocked in the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She disguised herself as an intern researcher, dressed in laboratory clothes, and had a close encounter with lunar soil samples. Initially, Chinese scientists overturned the widely held belief in academia that "lunar magmatic activity had basically ended 3 billion years ago" within just 53 hours with these returned lunar soil samples. These lunar soils prove that there were traces of magma eruptions on the moon 2 billion years ago, and the Chinese have revised the history of the moon.
Zhang Jiawei, a PhD student in neurointelligence at Fudan University, and Ma Jinlong, a PhD student in Environmental Science and Engineering at Fudan University, experienced "Martian life". Large and dry red sandstorms are constantly blowing on Mars, and over time, the surface is covered with thick red dust everywhere. When will Mars become a second planet suitable for human habitation? Perhaps we should expect the Zhurong spacecraft to discover more secrets about Mars.
"There is currently a giant asteroid rapidly approaching Earth, and a collision with Earth could cause serious damage!" This is often used as a "news" to attract attention. Is "asteroid collision with Earth" sensational? Yang Haochen from Beijing Normal University answered this question in a scientifically rigorous yet entertaining way. According to official sources, although asteroids approach Earth almost every day, they usually only pass by and the probability of collision is extremely low.
There are many secrets lurking in outer space waiting for human scientists to uncover. The program team introduced that in the second season of "Future China", Science Role Models and Science Youth League will provide audiences with a science popularization guide on deep space exploration in a more youthful tone, decoding scientific knowledge.
