{"id":566303,"date":"2026-07-24T17:35:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T17:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/566303\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T17:35:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T17:35:16","slug":"50-years-later-the-first-photo-ever-taken-on-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/566303\/","title":{"rendered":"50 Years Later: The First Photo Ever Taken on Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Black<\/a>Viking 1\u2019s first photo, and the first photo ever taken on the surface of Mars.<\/p>\n

This week marked the 50th anniversary of the NASA Viking 1 spacecraft landing safely on Mars, spearheading a new era of space exploration. Just minutes after Viking 1 landed on the Red Planet, it captured a photo, the first ever taken on the surface of Mars and the first time any human had ever seen a photo from another planet. <\/p>\n

On July 20, 1976, when Viking 1 touched down on Mars\u2019 dusty surface, it broke incredible new ground. The Viking 1 lander touched down on the western slope of Chryse Planitia, or \u201cthe Plains of Gold,\u201d and almost immediately began its scientific missions. Viking 1 and its sibling lander, Viking 2, were tasked with capturing photos, collecting data, and conducting experiments searching for evidence of life on Mars. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Each Viking lander had two identical cameras onboard. Given the nature of the mission, which required data to be transmitted to the accompanying Viking orbiter above Mars and then back to Earth, film cameras were not an option. The landers were equipped with a pair of 7.3-kilogram broadcast cameras, each with 12 silicon photodiodes. These cameras, mounted 0.8 meters apart, delivered a stereo view of Mars and very slowly scanned the scene. The scanning rate was synchronized with the data transmission speeds, which were about 16,000 bits per second to the orbiters. The orbiters then sent data to Earth at 250 bits per second. <\/p>\n

While these cameras were exceptionally slow by modern standards, this was 50 years ago, on Mars, about 225 million kilometers (140 million miles) away from Earth. What a remarkable accomplishment. When that first photo was finished scanning and then beamed back to Earth, it gave humanity its first-ever view of what it looked like from the Martian surface. For that alone, the Viking 1\u2019s cameras are spectacular. <\/p>\n

\"ACaptured on July 21, 1976, Viking 1\u2019s second day on Mars, this is the first-ever color photo taken from the surface of Mars.<\/p>\n

40 minutes after Viking 1 touched down on Mars, so at 5:52 AM PDT, mission controllers got their first glimpse of Viking\u2019s first images. The photo appeared one narrow strip of data at a time. <\/p>\n

\u201cI studied the black screen, waiting for that narrow strip that will signal the first few lines of the first picture,\u201d described Dr. Thomas Mutch, leader of the Viking lander imaging team. \u201cAnd it appeared. A sliver of electronic magic. Areas of brightness and darkness.<\/p>\n

And it appeared. A sliver of electronic magic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe picture begins to fill the screen. Rocks and sand are visible and \u2014 finally at the far right \u2014 one of the spacecraft foot pads, a symbolic artifact that stamps our accomplishment with the sign of reality. Time and time again I repeat, \u2018It\u2019s incredible.’\u201d <\/p>\n

Time and time again I repeat, \u2018It\u2019s incredible.\u2019<\/p>\n

In the past 50 years, humanity has learned much more about Mars and captured so many stunning photos. All of this remarkable science and discovery owes an enormous debt to the Viking 1 and Viking 2 missions.<\/p>\n

\"Side-by-side<\/a>\u2018From Viking to Perseverance: Two views from the surface of Mars \u2014 July 21, 1976, and July 23, 2024 \u2014 separated by 4,200 miles (7,200 kilometers) and 48 years.\u2019 | Credit: NASA\/JPL<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was once only visible from a distance, we could now reach out and grasp,\u201d NASA explains. <\/p>\n

Image creditsNASA\/JPL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Viking 1\u2019s first photo, and the first photo ever taken on the surface of Mars. This week marked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[239107,239108,30225,2284,61,60,2704,46612,91,82,247,43058,239109,239110],"class_list":["post-566303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-50thanniversary","tag-firsteverphoto","tag-historic","tag-history","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mars","tag-martian","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-space","tag-viking","tag-viking1","tag-viking2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}