National Aeronautics and

Space Administration
John F. Kennedy Space Center
Kennedy Space Center, Florida 32899
AC 305 867-2468

KSC 169-80
October 1980

EXPLORATION
OF A RUSTYPLANET

First photograph ever taken on the surface of Mars, obtained minutes after the historic toudldown
of Viking Lander 1. Note the dust particles that settled Into the concaw center of the space-
craft's footpad upon landing.

On the lonely plains of a small planet, millions of miles from Earth,

stand two relics of one of the most monumental expeditions in the history of
mankind. They are named Viking landers, because like the Norse explorers of
old, they set out across a wide and landless void to seek a new world.

They look like metallic three-legged creatures, but the landers are
really miniature robot laboratories whose main purpose was to probe for life
in the red soil of Mars. There are four Viking components in the vicinity--
two orbiters circling the planet (both now inactive) and two landers on the
surface (one retired, the other still working once a week and hibernating the
rest of the time).

They came to the red planet in the summer of 1976 as two double
spacecraft. each with a lander and orbiter temporarily attached. On July 20,
; the Viking 1 lander separated from its orbiter, parachuted through the thin
.atmosphere. fired retrorockets, and touched down in a swirling cloud of dust.
This was. to the day. 7 years after astronauts first landed on the Moon.

KSC FORM 2-1&3 (7/75)

,
 Almost immediately the first data was transmitted back to Earth, that the
Martian surface was strong enough to support a heavy machine. Then came the
long-awaited first photograph, a very clear black-and-white picture of the
ground below and one of the Viking's footpads. It took 5 minutes of camera
scanning to produce the historic photo, and 20 minutes to transmit it more
than 321 million kilometers (200 million miles) back to Earth.

The next photograph, a panorama of the Plains of Chryse surrounding the

Viking 1 lander, revealed a gently rolling plain with fine soil and rocks of
all sizes strewn abundantly in every direction. Later photographs showed the
color of the rocks ranged from light to dark grey to slightly reddish and that
the soil was rust-red. Some rocks contained small holes, which resembled the
sponge1ike texture of lava from Earth volcanoes. Some scientists think they
were formed the same way, by gases bubbling through molten rock. Others, how-
ever, believe the pits were carved by wind and soil action, like simi1ar-
looking rocks in the Egyptian desert. The Viking 1 lander also photographed
rippled dunes, evidence that the wind does indeed shape Martian landforms.

Photographs from the Plains of Utopia, where the Viking 2 lander touched
down on September 3,1976, were similar.

The lander pictures surprised scientists who expected the Martian sky to
appear deep blue to black. Colored by fine-grained red dust suspended in the
atmosphere, the sky had a creamy-pinkish hue.

Though one project scientist said the scenery was so much like an Earth
desert that he almost expected to see camels, the Viking cameras detected no
signs of living creatures in their vicinity. But because Martian life could
exist at microscopic sizes--as most life on Earth does--the true tests were
performed on the molecular level. The twin landers performed three different
life detection experiments in search of carbon-based life forms such as those
on Earth. The carbon atom is the core of every living molecule on Earth.

The pyrolytic release experiment began with a soil sample scooped up from
the windblown surface and dumped into an incubation chamber on the lander.
Radioactive carbon dioxide was added to the atmosphere in the chamber, Martian
sunlight was simulated, and the sample was heated to 625°C (1,150°F) to drive
off organic vapors. If any Martian organism converted the carbon dioxide into
organic compounds, the compounds could be detected by their radioactivity.
Small amounts of carbon dioxide were converted into carbon compounds at both
lander sites, mimicking biological activity, but this could have been
accomplished by a reducing agent in the soil, such as metallic iron.

The labeled release experiment fed radioactivity-tagged nutrients to a

soil sample, and monitored its activity. An initial, rapid release of radio-
active carbon dioxide (at both lander sites) indicated metabolic activity, but
the reaction slowed down, suggesting instead that some chemical was being used
up.
The gas exchange experiment exposed soil to a nutrient. Samples of the
atmosphere above were periodically examined in a gas chromatograph, which
searched for gases of low molecular weight, such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide,

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methane, or nitrogen. Their existence would mean a microbial feast had
occurred. Unexpected, large bursts of oxygen occurred at Chryse, less at
Utopia, which could be explained as the result of chemical rather than biolog-
ical activity. Had hydrogen or methane gas been detected as well, the
presence of life would have been substantiated.

The test results were ambiguous, although forms of activity were defin-
itely observed. It was impossible to tell if the activity detected in the
Martian soil were some form of unusual chemistry or a specialized and unique
form of life. The unending blasts of ultraviolet radiation that penetrate the
thin Martian atmosphere may have created chemical reactions so exotic they can
mimic biological reactions.

An X-ray fluorescence instrument characterized the elements in soil

samples at both Viking landing sites, and showed that although 5,000
kilometers (3,100 miles) apart, the two sites have approximately the same soil
composition. The chief elements are: oxygen, 42 percent; silicon, 21
percent; and iron, 13 percent. Aluminum, magnesium, calcium, sulfur,
chlorine, titanium, and potassium constitute another 16 percent of the total.
Elements in the remaining 8 percent are probably undetectable by this method.
The long-held theory that the reddish-ochre Martian surface is a red iron
oxide was confirmed.

In the days that followed the Viking landings, each spacecraft's meteoro-
logical boom unfurled and began sending weather data from Mars. As days
turned into weeks, the weather remained almost unchanged. At Chryse tempera-
ture highs were about -28°C (-19°F) each day, and lows about -82°C (-116°F).
At Utopia, temperatures ranged from highs of about -31°C (-23°F) to lows about
the same as at Chryse. Wind speeds averaged 23.3 kilometers per hour (14.5
miles per hour) at Chryse, and 12.5 km/h (7.8 mi/h) at Utopia.

The highest atmospheric temperature ever recorded by the landers, -21°C

(-17°F), occurred at Chryse (the southern site) in midsummer. The lowest,
-124°C (-191°F), was measured at Utopia (the northern site) in winter. This
was approximately the freezing point of carbon dioxide. Wind speeds gusted to
120 km/h (74 mi/h) during two global dust storms that occurred in the first
year the Vikings spent on Mars. The pressure of the atmosphere varied from
6.8 to 9.0 millibars at Chryse, as weather systems swept by the Viking 1
lander.
The only optical change observed by the landers during the storms was a
subtle darkening of the the skies. However, during the next winter the Viking
cameras photographed patches of receding frost at the Lander 2 site. After
the frost disappeared when the weather grew warmer, a thin layer of 1ight-
colored dust was detected covering the soil and rocks at the same site. The
frost, probably water ice, most likely condensed around the nuclei of dust
particles that slowly settled out from the global dust storms that raged
earlier in the year.

The landers determined the composition of the atmosphere as they

descended, and then on the surface: carbon dioxide, 95 percent (compared to
0.03 percent of Earth1s); nitrogen, 2-3 percent; oxygen, 0.1-0.4 percent;
argon 1-2 percent; and traces of krypton and xenon.

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 Circling above the planet, the orbiters found the air of Mars to contain
only about 1/1000 as much water vapor as that of Earth. The atmospheric pres-
sure is only about 1/125 that of Earth's, but on both planets the temperature
reaches its peak at about 3 p.m. local time.

Mars nas fewer CloudS tnan tne tartn, but a large variety: summer
cyclones, wave clouds, surface hazes, and huge cloud systems that cover the
northern pole and the flanks of the great Martian volcanoes.

Ine orblters proVlded nlgn resolutlon pnotograpns of mysterious geo-

graphic features. There are icy polar caps with laminated deposits; the
largest dune field in the solar system; sinuous dry channels, perhaps water-
cut in an earlier time; and meteorite craters with scalloped ejecta, some with
teardrop-shaped deposits trailing behind them. There are gargantuan
volcanoes. Olympus Mons, the largest volcano on Mars, is about 600 km (375
miles) across at the base and approximately 25 km (15 miles) high. There is
also a great network of canyons called Valles Marineris, which extends 4,500
km (2,800 miles) in the equatorial regions of Mars.

Ine vlKlng expealtlons nave answered many questlons about Mars, whi Ie
raising others, but the major question--Is there life on Mars?--remains
unresolved. Perhaps future spacecraft can unlock the remaining secrets of the
red planet.

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