February 7, 1996
The universe has spent billions of years making things that shine. On your birthday, we celebrate one of its quieter masterpieces.
If You Could Stand on Mars
Birthday · February 7, 1996
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published February 7, 1996. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
If you could stand on Mars - what would you see? Viking 1 robot landers answered this question in 1976 with pictures like the one shown above. The dark rocks, red soil, and green-tinged sky grace this rendition of a normal Martian afternoon. At the bottom corners of the picture are portions of Viking spacecraft. The red color of the rocks is caused by an abundance of iron in the soil. The Martian surface is covered by rocks, huge craters, fantastic canyons, and gigantic volcanoes that dwarf any on Earth. No life has been found, but some speculate that since not all spacecraft reaching Mars from Earth had been fully decontaminated, Earth born microbes might live there now.