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China's Mars Probe Sends Back Video of Red Planet

The planet Mars is shown May 12, 2016 in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope view taken May 12, 2016 when it was 50 million miles from Earth. NASA/Handout via Reuters
The planet Mars is shown May 12, 2016 in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope view taken May 12, 2016 when it was 50 million miles from Earth. NASA/Handout via Reuters
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China's Mars Probe Sends Back Video of Red Planet

The planet Mars is shown May 12, 2016 in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope view taken May 12, 2016 when it was 50 million miles from Earth. NASA/Handout via Reuters
The planet Mars is shown May 12, 2016 in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope view taken May 12, 2016 when it was 50 million miles from Earth. NASA/Handout via Reuters

China's space agency released video footage from its spacecraft circling Mars on Friday, two days after it successfully entered the planet's orbit in Beijing's latest ambitious space mission.

In the video, published by state broadcaster CCTV, the surface of the planet is seen coming into view out of a pitch black sky against the outside of the Tianwen-1, which entered the orbit of the Red Planet on Wednesday.

White craters are visible on the planet's surface, which fades from white to black through the video as the probe flies over the course of one Martian day, said official news agency Xinhua.

The five-ton Tianwen-1 -- which translates as "Questions to Heaven" -- includes a Mars orbiter, a lander and a solar-powered rover and launched from southern China last July.

It is the latest step in Beijing's space program, which aims to establish a crewed space station by 2022 and eventually put an astronaut on the moon, and has opened up a new, extraterrestrial arena for US-China competition.

Tianwen-1 launched around the same time as a rival US mission, and is expected to touch down on the surface of the planet in May.

Its success comes the same week as the United Arab Emirates' "Hope" probe also successfully entered Mars' orbit -- making history as the Arab world's first interplanetary mission.

Chinese scientists hope to land a 240-kilogram rover in May in Utopia, a massive impact basin on Mars. Its orbiter will last for a Martian year.

For the three-month study of the planet's soil and atmosphere, the mission will take photos, chart maps and look for signs of past life.

The probe has already sent back its first image of Mars -- a black-and-white photo that showed geological features including the Schiaparelli crater and the Valles Marineris, a vast stretch of canyons on the Martian surface.

Mars has proved to be a challenging target, with most missions since 1960, sent by Russia, Europe, Japan and India, ending in failure.

NASA's Perseverance, which is set to touch down on the Red Planet on February 18, will become the fifth rover to complete the voyage since 1997 -- and all so far have been American.

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How Alcatraz Became America’s Most Notorious Prison

One of three cell tiers of individual cells at the main block of the Alcatraz Federal Prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, California, March 15, 1956. (AP)
One of three cell tiers of individual cells at the main block of the Alcatraz Federal Prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, California, March 15, 1956. (AP)
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How Alcatraz Became America’s Most Notorious Prison

One of three cell tiers of individual cells at the main block of the Alcatraz Federal Prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, California, March 15, 1956. (AP)
One of three cell tiers of individual cells at the main block of the Alcatraz Federal Prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, California, March 15, 1956. (AP)

President Donald Trump wants to turn Alcatraz, a popular US tourist destination, into a federal prison again, more than 60 years after the California island fortress was shut down as too costly.

Trump says Alcatraz, now part of the National Park Service, suddenly is needed to house America’s “most ruthless and violent” criminals. It's where the government sent notorious gangsters Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly as well as lesser-known men who were considered too dangerous to lock up elsewhere.

“When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Trump said Sunday on his Truth Social site.

What is Alcatraz? Alcatraz is in San Francisco Bay off the coast of San Francisco and visible from the Golden Gate Bridge. It is best known for its years as a federal prison, from 1934-63, but its history is much longer.

President Millard Fillmore in 1850 declared the island for public purposes, according to the park service, and it soon became a military site. Confederates were housed there during the Civil War.

By the 1930s, the government decided that it needed a place to hold the worst criminals, and Alcatraz became the choice for a prison.

“A remote site was sought, one that would prohibit constant communication with the outside world by those confined within its walls,” the park service said. “Although land in Alaska was being considered, the availability of Alcatraz Island conveniently coincided with the government’s perceived need for a high security prison.”

Why did it close? The remoteness eventually made it impractical. Everything from food to fuel had to arrive by boat.

“The island had no source of fresh water,” according to the US Bureau of Prisons, “so nearly one million gallons of water had to be barged to the island each week.”

The cost to house someone there in 1959 was $10.10 a day compared with $3 at a federal prison in Atlanta, the government said. It was cheaper to build a new prison from scratch.

Why is Alcatraz notorious? Despite the location, many prisoners tried to get out: 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes into the bay, according to the FBI. Nearly all were caught or didn’t survive the cold water and swift current.

“Escape from Alcatraz,” a 1979 movie starring Clint Eastwood, told the story of John Anglin, his brother Clarence and Frank Morris, who all escaped in 1962, leaving behind handmade plaster heads with real hair in their beds to fool guards.

“For the 17 years we worked on the case, no credible evidence emerged to suggest the men were still alive, either in the US or overseas,” the FBI said.

A national park Alcatraz became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and was opened to the public in 1973, a decade after it was closed as a prison.

The park service says the island gets more than 1 million visitors a year who arrive by ferry. A ticket for an adult costs $47.95. Visitors can see the cells where prisoners were held.