On this day in 1964, the Mariner 4 spacecraft launched and completed the first Mars flyby, marking today as Red Planet Day. Mariner 4 took snapshots of the surface of Mars and gave us our first up-close view of the planet. While Mariner 4 was meant to capture data only for a few months, it stayed in orbit collecting solar wind data for several years. Continue reading “Red Planet Day 2018”