Millions also viewed television images of the Martian surface beamed back from the landing site, which was named the Sagan Memorial Station in honor of the late astronomer, Carl Sagan. Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which ran the Pathfinder mission for NASA, and colleagues around the world have been analyzing and interpreting the data beamed back from Mars. They have now published their major findings in a special section of the Journal of Geophysical Research, published by the American Geophysical Union. The journal's April 25 issue devotes 576 pages to Pathfinder, consisting of 35 papers grouped in thematic areas, such as geology and geomorphology, magnetic properties, atmosphere, and cartography. It is the first detailed, published account of science results from the entire mission and is the largest ever issue of JGR-Planets, since it was launched in 1991.
Planets is one of five thematic editions of the journal.
Papers in the journal also describe the events of the mission and the analysis of the data. In addition, scientists developed and perfected many investigational techniques, reported in JGR, that will be employed in future unmanned missions to the planets. The April 25 JGR report on Pathfinder is replete with color and black and white images, charts, graphs, and other figures.