Fact Sheet
Mariner, Meet Mariner
Forty years ago this month, the Mariner 4 spacecraft snapped the first close-range pictures of the planet Mars when it flew just a few thousand miles above the planet's surface. This image, from an altitude of about 7,500 miles, shows a large crater, which astronomers later named Mariner crater in honor of the mission. Mariner's 22 images showed a stark landscape of craters and plains, with none of the dry riverbeds, volcanoes, and other interesting features discovered by later missions. [NASA]
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