Tianwen 2 probe sends back pictures of Earth and moon

China's Tianwen 2 asteroid sampling spacecraft had been on its interplanetary itinerary for over 33 days as of Tuesday morning, with the robotic probe being more than 12 million kilometers away from Earth, according to the China National Space Administration.

The administration said in a brief news release that the Tianwen 2 spacecraft is travelling in a transfer trajectory toward its destination, an asteroid called 2016 HO3, and had been in a good condition by that morning.

The administration also published two pictures taken by the spacecraft's narrow-field-of-view navigation sensor, showing Earth and the moon when it was about 590,000 km away from our mother planet and the moon, respectively.

The Tianwen 2, representing China's first attempt to bring pristine asteroid materials back to Earth, was launched on May 29 by a Long March 3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Southwest China's Sichuan province.