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The China National Space Administration announced, on the 17th of May 2021, that the Tianwen 1 mission landed the Zhurong rover on Mars, with the landing taking place on the 15th of May 2021. What independent evidence exists for this landing? 'Independent' here means 'not sourced from China'.

curiousdannii
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  • Please: before voting to close this as a duplicate, at least consider closing the duplicate as a duplicate of this, as I believe an accepted answer is a more useful reference than a question with an answer which can now never be accepted as the account is gone. –  Jun 11 '21 at 17:07
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    I don't see the point of posting a question that you know is a duplicate. – Organic Marble Jun 11 '21 at 17:25
  • @OrganicMarble: because I think accepted answers are worth having. If you disagree about that I'll delete it. But in that case I simply see no purpose in having accepted answers at all. –  Jun 11 '21 at 17:46
  • I will abstain from voting on this either way because I'm baffled. – Organic Marble Jun 11 '21 at 18:05
  • @OrganicMarble: I give up. If the idea of having accepted answers if baffling to you I want nothing more to do with any of this. Bye. –  Jun 11 '21 at 18:08
  • @OrganicMarble There have been many times across the StackExchange network where an older question has been closed as a duplicate of a newer question. This happens often if the newer question is better written, better researched, has better answers, and in some cases, simply has an accepted answer while the older question does not. – David Hammen Jun 11 '21 at 18:59
  • This gets to another reason for closing an older question as a duplicate of a newer one: The older question was asked by a drive-by questioner who hasn't returned to the site since asking the question. Some elements of the SE network don't allow a question to be closed as a duplicate of another unless that other question has an accepted answer. In my mind, what tfb did here was perfectly fine. – David Hammen Jun 11 '21 at 19:01
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    @DavidHammen as I said, I'm recusing myself from voting on this. Have at it! I upvoted tfb's fine answer on the other question. – Organic Marble Jun 11 '21 at 19:04
  • I hope @tfb comes back. It appears that tfb is quite upset over this, having replaced the user profile with "Gone", and has done so all across the SE network. tfb was a very good member, not just here but also at physics.SE, StackOverflow, and several others. Come back, tfb! OrganicMarble doesn't understand the emphasis that StackExchange places on accepted answers. That's his opinion, to which he's entitled. – David Hammen Jun 11 '21 at 19:17
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    IMO the tour page emphasizes upvoted answers over accepted ones – BrendanLuke15 Jun 11 '21 at 22:10
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    Does this answer your question? Is there independent evidence that China landed a robot on Mars in May 2021? Seeing as the other question and its answers are much more detailed than this, there is no reason to consider closing it as a duplicate of this. – curiousdannii Jun 12 '21 at 01:21
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    Utterly obnoxious behaviour from the OP here. Accepted answers don't matter to anyone except the question asker. There is absolutely zero problem with not having an accepted answer. If you want to reward an answer, you can always post a bounty! – curiousdannii Jun 12 '21 at 01:22
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    Relevant meta question: Should old questions by a deleted user be re-asked so someone can choose the accepted answer? – DrSheldon Jun 12 '21 at 05:28

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This image from HiRISE shows the landing site of the Zhurong rover on Mars and the rover itself. See also BBC page which has the same image, as well as this Nature article

These images originate from a NASA orbiter, which I believe makes them independent.

I think this is extremely convincing evidence.

Zhurong from HiRISE