Mariner 6 & 7

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In 1969, two more probes followed Mariner 4. These probes were Mariner 6 and 7, which contained three times the amount of instrumentation that was on Mariner 4. Included in the instrumentation for these probes were

• IR and UV spectrometers
• Two cameras, one wide angle camera for more ground coverage, and one narrow angle camera for higher resolution.

The IR and UV spectrometers showed that the Martian atmosphere was composed mostly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen was only a trace gas. This changed many theories about Mars, because it was previously theorized that the main gas in the Martian atmosphere was nitrogen. Mariner 6 and 7 also showed that at the Martian poles there was frozen carbon dioxide, not ice.

Despite the fact that the cameras on the Mariner 6 and 7 probes were much more sophisticated than the earlier probe cameras, the quality of the images were still too low to show many important details of the Martian surface. From the resolution of the probes, the Martian surface still looks covered with impact craters with few other geological formations. To Mariner 6 and 7, Mars looked like a dead world similar to the moon.

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