Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. Operating on the Martian surface into the early 1980s, the Vikings took thousands of pictures , conducted sophisticated chemical searches for life and studied the Martian weather and geology. Viking 1's dusty foot pad is just visible at the lower right. The image was created by combining high resolution black and white images with lower resolution color images of the same area. NASA is planning to continue its extremely productive and well chronicled exploration of the mysterious Red Planet with the Mars Global Surveyor and the Mars Pathfinder missions.
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