It was one of a twin set of spacecraft designed to take images of Mars, and the first one failed.
Dan Goods/NASA/JPL-CaltechThe transmission was incredibly slow by today’s standards, given that the Perseverance rover regularly sends back batches of high-resolution images from Mars.
Together, they revealed craters on the Martian surface and clouds floating above in the atmosphere, both of which surprised scientists.
The highest-resolution Mariner 4 image (right) revealed the cratered Martian surface from 7,830 miles (12,601 kilometers) above.
JPL/NASAThe snapshots showed less than 1% of the Martian surface, missing the more diverse features on the planet’s surface that later missions such as Viking 1 would capture.
Persons:
Pasadena , California CNN —, Mars, “, ”, David Delgado, Percival, Dan Goods, Richard Grumm, Grumm, ” Delgado, William Pickering
Organizations:
Pasadena , California CNN, Spacecraft, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA’s, JPL, Mariner, Venus, NASA Mariner, NASA, Caltech, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Locations:
Pasadena , California, High, Pasadena, Flagstaff , Arizona, Goldstone , California