Mars

Seen from Earth, Mars is a bright blood red star. This led to its association with war and hence its naming after the ancient war god of the Romans.

Of all the planets Mars is the best known, largely because of the science fiction stories and film featuring it. Many of these were produced long before spacecraft visited Mars, and were based on observations made through Earth based telescopes. These showed a red disc with changeable dark areas and white polar caps, and there was great speculation as to what forms of life could live there. It is amazing just now wrong our ideas of Mars of science fact has turned out to be very different from the Mars of science fiction. It is however in many ways much more fascinating.

It was when the space age arrived with a series of Mars flybys, orbiters and Landers that we found out what things really like on the red planet.

Our most recent knowledge has come mostly from the Viking spacecraft which arrived at Mars in 1976. Two crass were put into orbit round the planet, and mapped the surface in detail. Each orbiter carried a lender, and after careful studies of the landing sites from orbit, these were sent down to the surface.

Plunging through the thin Martian air, and protected by heat shield, the Viking Landers descended to their targets. They went first by parachute and the rocket engines.

The first landing took place on 20th July 1976. that was just seven years after the Apollo moon landing. As the Viking cameras slowly moved along, the bleak rock strewn and red surface of Mars was revealed.

Viking carried instrument to discover what the martin atmosphere was like, and to take readings of the temperature, wind speed and direction. It was our own weather station on Mars.

Viking was soon reporting that the Martian air is very about 100 times thinner than Earth’s it is mostly carbon dioxide with just a tiny trace of nitrogen, oxygen and water vapor. It would be extremely unsuitable for most life as we know it.

Through the Viking cameras mars surface was revealed.