The Surface of Mars: There View from the Viking 1 Lander

Abstract

The first photographs ever returned from the surface of Mars were obtained by two facsimile cameras aboard the Viking 1 lander, including black-and-white and color, 0.12° and 0.04° resolution, and monoscopic and stereoscopic images. The surface, on the western slopes of Chtyse Planitia, is a boulder-strewn deeply reddish desert, with distant eminences—some of which may be the rims of impact craters—surmounted by a pink sky. Both impact and aeolian processes are evident. After dissipation of a small dust cloud stirred by the landing maneuvers, no subsequent signs of movement were detected on the landscape, and nothing has been observed that is indicative of macroscopic biology at this time and place.