Where does this come from, and can I check it?

Its 1965 flyby showed a cratered surface and a thin atmosphere. The figure is taken from NASA Science, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a space fact?

Yes. It sits on the Space shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

What else can I read about it?

The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

Mariner 4 sent the first close-up pictures of Mars

Its 1965 flyby showed a cratered surface and a thin atmosphere Mariner 4 passed within about 9,800 kilometres of Mars in July 1965 and returned 21 images. The pictures revealed a moon-like surface of craters and suggested a cold, dry world, a shock to people who expected canals and vegetation. The spacecraft also measured surface pressure at under one percent of Earth's. It sits in Mondo's space collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

NASA Science

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Space & Astronomy trivia

More facts like this

New Horizons reached Pluto after nine and a half yearsThe flyby in July 2015 was the first close look at the dwarf planet New Horizons performed the first close-up flyby of Pluto in 2015High-resolution photos revealed ice mountains and nitrogen glaciers Mars launch windows open about every 26 monthsSpacecraft wait for the planets to line up along an elliptical path Martian dust storms can swallow the whole planetOccasionally haze engulfs Mars for weeks and cuts off solar power Mars polar caps grow and shrink every yearFrozen carbon dioxide condenses out of the air, changing the planet's pressure Mars once had a global magnetic fieldRemanent magnetism in old crust shows it switched off billions of years ago

Tags: mariner, mars, flyby

Mariner 4 sent the first close-up pictures of Mars: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Its 1965 flyby showed a cratered surface and a thin atmosphere. The figure is taken from NASA Science, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a space fact?: Yes. It sits on the Space shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.