July 4, 2025
Today in 1997 the Mars Pathfinder lander and Sojourner rover landed on Mars. The success of this mission helped pave the way for NASA’s current rover missions on Mars.
The image at the top is Pathfinder’s panorama view of the landing site “Ares Vallis”. The bottom left image is of the rover Sojourner using its Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer on the Yogi Rock. Yogi Rock was named after the famous cartoon character, Yogi Bear, due to the rock resembling the head of a bear looking away from Pathfinder. The bottom right image is the official insignia of the Mars Pathfinder mission.
All images courtesy of NASA.
