Travel through time and space on Mars in this cool mosaic, which includes at least one shot from every robotic mission to successfully land on the Red Planet's surface (click on the image to enlarge).
Stitched together from many different locations and eras in spaceflight, the picture gives a nice overview of our Mars explorations and provides some notable highlights from each mission. The six different probes -- some of them simply landers and others mobile rovers -- represent only a handful of Mars missions that made it to the Red Planet, and are dwarfed by failed missions, which constitute the majority of attempts to reach Mars.
Nickolay Lamm, the amateur astronomer who created the panorama, said he wanted to capitalize on the excitement surrounding NASA's most recent rover, Curiosity, which has already beamed back some incredible images of the Martian surface. Lamm also wanted to depict the technological generations leading up to the rover's successful landing on Aug. 5. "I wanted to show that there are incredible pictures of Mars from decades ago, not just the rover Curiosity," he said.
The mosaic starts with a blotchy image from the Soviet Mars 3 probe, which achieved the first touchdown on another planet and sent back the first picture ever taken from the Martian surface in 1971. Mars 3 landed in a cratered region southwest of Mars' great Tharsis volcanic range. For unknown reasons, the lander ceased its transmissions about 20 seconds after it hit the ground and wasn't heard from again.
The second shot comes from the much more successful NASA Viking mission, which touched down two landers on opposite sides of Mars in 1976. Viking 1 came down in an area known as Chryse Planitia and had the distinction of beaming back the first clear image from the Martian surface. Its companion, Viking 2, landed in the Utopia Planitia shortly thereafter. Together, they provided amazing data about Mars during their six-year-total mission.
It took 20 years before NASA sent another Red Planet lander, the Mars Pathfinder mission. It included the first successful rover, Sojourner, to move about on the Martian surface. Pathfinder came down not far from Viking 1, in a valley known as Ares Vallis. Sojourner roved for three months, analyzing rocks, measuring atmospheric characteristics, and taking more than 16,500 total pictures.
The Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, arrived at Mars in 2004. Opportunity touched down at the Meridiani Planum while Spirit explored the region around Gusev Crater, both providing incredible data about Mars' watery past during their missions. Spirit's first Pancam image is also the highest resolution picture taken on the surface of another planet. The rover, which sadly stopped operating in 2010, also provided the breathtaking sunset image in the panorama above. Opportunity is still roving around the Martian surface.
In 2008, NASA brought the Phoenix lander to the surface of Mars, touching down in the Martian Arctic for the first time. Digging into the soil with its trench, Phoenix uncovered evidence for shallow subsurface ice in the Martian poles. The lander also observed snow falling from Martian clouds and helped characterize the planet's surface chemistry. After Phoenix spent a Martian winter in safe mode, engineers at JPL mission control tried to resume communication with the lander in 2010 but were unable.
The newest visitor is the Curiosity rover, which has been delighting viewers on Earth with amazing shots of its environment inside Gale crater. Designed to look for evidence of habitability on the planet past or present, Curiosity is the largest and most sophisticated piece of equipment to land on another planet. Over the course of its two-year initial mission, it will drive up a mountain at the center of Gale crater, drilling and sampling at every chance it gets.
Image: Nickolay Lamm/InventHelp
