Launched in 1964, NASA's Mariner 4 probe was the first spacecraft to photograph the surface of Mars close-up and analyse its atmosphere. The 22 grainy black and white photographs it took as it flew by the Red Planet showed scientists that Mars had craters like the Moon and was not teeming with life as some had predicted.
Later Mariner missions would reveal more of Mars's interesting geology.
Photo: The first close-up of Mars (NASA)
The unmanned Mariner missions gradually revealed Mars's extreme landforms. Perhaps most impressive was Olympus Mons, a volcano three times the size of Mount Everest.
The Mariner 4 probe arrived at Mars in July of 1965, returning the first close-up photographs of the planet's surface as it flew by. The spacecraft showed scientists a barren, cratered area on Mars devoid of any signs of life.
The handful of fuzzy black and white photographs taken by Mariner 4 in 1965 showed NASA's scientists a Martian surface covered with craters. This was evidence of a lack of recent weathering and erosion on the Red Planet.
Mariner 4 (together with Mariner 3 known as Mariner-Mars 1964) was the fourth in a series of spacecraft, launched on November 28, 1964, intended for planetary exploration in a flyby mode and performed the first successful flyby of the planet Mars, returning the first pictures of the Martian surface. It captured the first images of another planet ever returned from deep space; their depiction of a cratered, seemingly dead world largely changed the view of the scientific community on life on Mars. Mariner 4 was designed to conduct closeup scientific observations of Mars and to transmit these observations to Earth. Other mission objectives were to perform field and particle measurements in interplanetary space in the vicinity of Mars and to provide experience in and knowledge of the engineering capabilities for interplanetary flights of long duration. On December 21, 1967 communications with Mariner 4 were terminated.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the user-contributed encyclopedia. If you find the content in the 'About' section factually incorrect, defamatory or highly offensive you can edit this article at Wikipedia.
BBC © 2012 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.
