#viking 1

but how about:

the patron saints of last messages and quiet goodbyes

the patron saint of overstaying your welcome

the patron saint of being small, afraid, and doing it anyway

the patron saint of first steps you can never take back

the patron saint of flying for the ones who couldn't

the patron saints of asking "are we alone?" and only hearing your echo

NASA Image of the Day (July 20, 2026)

Our First View of the Surface of Mars

On the morning of July 20, 1976, roughly 40 minutes after mission controllers received word that the Viking 1 lander had successfully touched down on the surface of Mars, this photo gave us our first view from the surface of another planet.

Image description: two photos of a singular replica of a triangular shaped satellite, one from directly below showing its thruster and one from the front. In the latter picture, the US flag is visible above a star made up of red, white, and blue stripes. Around the star in black print is the words: "American Revolution Bicentennial 1776-1976".

The Viking program was a pair of indentical NASA space probes creatively named Viking 1 and Viking 2. The probes each consisted of an orbiter and lander. They were both launched in the same year (1975), and landed on Mars in 1976.

As part of the celebrations of 1976 being 200 years since the start of the American Revolution and the Viking missions being a wholly US mission, the orbiter bore a design honoring that fact.