Charlie (@clong5604)

#On_This_Day 59 years ago, decades before Spirit and Opportunity were launched, a probe named Mariner 4 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. On July 14, 1965, it reached the planet Mars and took the first [up close] photos humans had ever seen of another world: 21 grainy black and white images, sent back through the distances of space took approximately six hours to be transmitted back to earth that showed a Martian surface densely covered in impact craters. After the Mars flyby, Mariner 4 coasted into solar orbit. The spacecraft continued to return data to Earth for another three years, and was used by scientists to study the solar wind environment. Source: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/f-mariner4.html