On this night in science
The first close-up pictures of Mars
November 28, 1964
On this day in 1964, a spacecraft called Mariner 4 launched from Florida on a trip to Mars. Seven and a half months later it flew past the planet and took the first close-up pictures ever made of another planet, showing a dusty world covered in craters.
Why it mattered
Before Mariner 4, no one knew what Mars looked like up close. Its pictures came back so slowly that the team colored in the first one by hand, number by number, while they waited.
Wonder together
If you were the first to see a picture of a new planet, what would you hope to spot in it?
Where this comes from