20 Years Ago: Vikings on Mars
Explanation:
On July 20, 1976, NASA's Viking 1 lander become the first
spacecraft to land on
Mars,
followed weeks later by its twin robot
explorer, the Viking 2 lander. Operating on
the Martian surface
into the early 1980s,
the Vikings took thousands of pictures,
conducted sophisticated chemical searches for life
and studied the
Martian weather and geology.
In the dramatically detailed image above, a field of rocks and boulders
is viewed from the Viking 1 landing sight on Chryse Planitia
(the Plain of Chryse).
Viking 1's dusty foot pad is just visible at the lower right.
The image was created by combining high resolution black and white images
with lower resolution color images of the same area.
NASA is planning to continue its extremely productive and
well chronicled
exploration of the mysterious Red Planet with
the Mars Global Surveyor and
the Mars Pathfinder missions.
What's Mars like today?
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
