The list
Mars is hard to reach and even harder to land on. Every NASA lander and rover was built to work for a set time, and several kept going much longer. When they finally went quiet, they stayed right where they stopped, all across the red planet. Ready to visit them?
Here are the same 8 places and 5 missions as on the 3D globe. Curious about the other one? Visit the Moon list.
22.27° N, 47.95° W
The “Plains of Gold”: a low, flat region in the north of Mars. Viking 1 landed on a smooth plain here. The name comes from old telescope maps.
Left behind at this spot: Viking 1 lander
19.33° N, 33.55° W
A long valley on Mars. “Vallis” means valley, and “Ares” is the Greek word for Mars.
14.57° S, 175.48° E
A large crater on Mars, about 160 km wide, named after Matvei Gusev, a Russian astronomer who lived from 1826 to 1866.
Left behind at this spot: Spirit rover
4.50° N, 135.62° E
A smooth, flat plain of old lava on Mars where InSight landed. “Elysium” comes from the ancient Greek name for a paradise after death, the Elysian Fields.
Left behind at this spot: InSight lander
18.50° N, 77.32° E
A crater on Mars, about 45 km wide, that once held a lake. It is named after a town in Bosnia and Herzegovina; “jezero” means “lake” in several Slavic languages.
47.67° N, 134.28° E
The “Plain of Utopia”: a huge, low plain on Mars, about 3,500 km across. Viking 2 landed here. The name comes from old telescope maps of Mars.
More things left behind by the missions listed here
Left behind at this spot: Viking 2 lander
1.95° S, 5.53° W
A high, flat plain on Mars. It was named because it lies close to Mars’ prime meridian, the line of 0° longitude. Opportunity landed here in 2004.
More things left behind by the missions listed here
Left behind at this spot: Opportunity rover
68.22° N, 125.75° W
Means “the Northern Vastness”. It is the name for the wide, mysterious northern plains of Mars.
More things left behind by the missions listed here
Left behind at this spot: Phoenix lander