Sixty years ago, the July 15, 1965the mission Mariner 4 the first close images from the surface of Mars: 22 photos that made history and showed the red planet for the first time as a vast cold desert dotted with craters. That mission ended the dream of the Martian life and at the same time opened a new era in space exploration.
Launched from the base of Cape Canaveral in Florida the November 28, 1964Mariner 4 employed Almost 8 months To reach Mars and then flocked the planet To little less than 10 thousand kilometers surface. A complex mission for the time, which involved the development of new types of solar panels To feed the on -board tools and for the first time the use of a stellar pointera sort of map of the sky used today in all spatial missions and necessary to maintain the right orientation of the vehicle.
There camera on board was activated just before reaching the slightest distance e In 42 minutes he managed to shoot 22 images who took hours to be transmitted. Images of very low quality if compared with those of today, just 40 thousand pixels and a weight of 240 kbitbut what They showed for the first time the true face of Mars.
“Was it time for truth: did we really get images?” Bill Momsen, one of the managers of Mariner 4, recalled in 2002. “And then wonder: one image after the other showed that the surface era dotted with craters! Appeared strangely similar to that of ours Moondeeply cracked and unchanged over time. No water, No channels, no life… although at the beginning the crew had been caught by a great euphoria in understanding that he had made it, the enthusiasm was attenuated by what had been revealed “.
Those first images only documented one small portion of the planetwhich we know that today we know much more varied, who showed for the first time how Mars is today a desert but were the first pieces who allowed to understand the history of our solar system much better and how in the past Mars hosted oceans, atmosphere, and perhaps life.
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I am a journalist with over 6 years of experience working in the news industry. I currently work as an author for Global Happenings, and my coverage focuses on Technology news. I have written for various publications, including Reuters, The New York Times and The Guardian.
