Last month, China successfully landed and deployed the Zhurong rover on Mars, becoming the second country ever to set wheels on the surface of the red planet.

Last year the United States, the United Arab Emirates and China all launched missions to Mars, taking advantage of the relatively short journey time offered by the two planets' unusually close proximity.

Why are planetary scientists so obsessed with Mars? Why spend so much time and money on this one planet when there are at least seven others in our solar system, more than 200 moons, countless asteroids, and much more besides?

Fortunately, we are going to other worlds, and there are lots of missions to very exciting places in our solar system—worlds bursting with exotic features such as ice volcanoes, rings of icy debris, and huge magnetic fields.

There are currently 26 active spacecraft dotted around our solar system. Some are orbiting other planets and moons, some have landed on the surfaces of other worlds, and some have performed fly-bys to beam back images.

Astronauts ventured out on a spacewalk Wednesday to outfit the International Space Station with powerful, new solar panels to handle the growing electrical demands from upcoming visitors.

It's the first of a series of spacewalks to equip the aging orbital outpost with smaller but stronger solar wings.

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, according to one of the three laws of robotics imagined by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. On board humanity's only outpost in space, this obedience has turned into cooperation. Astronauts and robots are working together.

The latest robot to service the International Space Station is the European Robotic Arm (ERA). This android automaton is much like a human arm. It has an elbow, shoulders and even wrists, and it the first robot able to 'walk' around the Russian part of the Space Station.

The arm will be launched into space together with the Multipurpose Laboratory Module, called "Nauka," from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, on 15 July 2021.

ESA astronaut André Kuipers is seen in this picture during his first space mission in 2004, with a scale model of the European Robotic Arm. The real thing has a length of over 11 m, and has the ability to anchor itself to the Station in multiple locations, moving backwards and forwards with a large range of motion.

"I am happy to see the European Robotic Arm fly next month.

Astronauts blasting off on Thursday for China's first manned mission to its new space station will have a choice of 120 different types of food and "space treadmills" for exercise during their stay, China's space agency said.

The mission will be China's longest crewed space mission to date and the first in nearly five years, as Beijing pushes forward with its ambitious programme to establish itself as a space power.

The astronauts will spend three months onboard the station, which has separate living modules for each of them, as well as a shared bathroom, dining area, and a communication centre to send emails and allow two-way video calls with ground control.

The trio will be able to work off their range of dinner options—which officials assured reporters were all both nutritious and tasty—on the space treadmills or bicycles.