Extraordinary photographs reveal the mysteries of Mars

From H. G. Wells’s alien invaders in The Warfare of the Worlds to The Martian‘s abandoned astronaut, we have long been inspired by the idea that life could reside on Mars – human or otherwise. Flybys, orbiters and landers, including NASA’s Perseverance rover and its aerial sidekick, Ingenuity, have made Mars probably the greatest understood planets in our photo voltaic system. Now, greater than ever, we’re nearer to answering the query: might life exist there?

A brand new ebook, Mars: Pictures from the NASA archive, celebrates the missions which have enriched our understanding of Mars and appears to a future the place people discover the Purple Planet.

Pictured from prime, important image: the Dingo hole in Gale crater, which NASA’s Curiosity rover crossed; an impression crater at Meridiani Planum, shot by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Excessive Decision Imaging Science Experiment digital camera; Mars’s floor temperature, from chilly blue to heat pink, captured by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft’s Thermal Emission Imaging System; Perseverance pictures the parachute used to gradual its touchdown; a rocket-powered stage lowers Perseverance onto Mars in a “sky crane” manoeuvre.