Story · Mars
Fifty Years Ago: Viking Lander Arm Fixed, 'Roman Letter' Spotted on Mars Rock
This article from The Hindu archives, dated July 27, 1976, reports on the successful repair of a jam in the Viking lander's soil-sampling arm on Mars. Commands from Earth straightened out the hitch after scientists at JPL discovered that extending the arm would cause a problematic lockpin to fall away, which it did. The Viking project manager expressed satisfaction and readiness to proceed. Additionally, new close-up images of the Chryse plain revealed a rock that appeared to bear the Roman letters 'B' and 'C' and the Arabic numeral '2'. Scientists, including Carl Sagan and Bruce Murray, attributed these markings to optical illusions caused by shadowing, cautioning against imagining patterns.
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