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Red Planet Day 2025 marks 61 years of Mariner 4’s historic Mars flyby, celebrating key milestones, discoveries and the future of humanity’s ambitious exploration of Mars.
Mars is called the red planet due to its iron-rich soil, which gives it a reddish hue.
Red Planet Day is observed globally on November 28 to honour our fascinating planetary neighbour, Mars. In 2025, Red Planet Day will mark the 61st anniversary of the launch of Mariner 4, which was NASA’s first successful mission to fly by Mars.
Hailed as a landmark occasion in human history as Earth’s efforts to explore and reveal the mysteries of the red planet, the Mariner 4 provided NASA experts with the first-ever close images of Mars and its surroundings. Mars is called the red planet due to its iron-rich soil, which gives it a reddish hue.
Red Planet Day 2025: History And Significance
Launched on November 28, 1964, the Mariner 4 mission is integral to the global observation and celebrations for Red Planet Day. Almost a year following its launch, NASA’s scientists and astro experts rejoiced as Mariner 4 became the first spacecraft to successfully fly by Mars on July 14, 1965.
The spaceship came up with 22 insightful black-and-white images of Mars’ surface, while revealing the mysterious planet’s craters and a landscape. Experts discovered that Mars’ landscape was strikingly similar to that of the Moon.
The Mariner 4 mission acted as a pioneer in Mars exploration. Since then, many orbiters, landers and rovers have reached the red planet and given Earth’s planetary experts more critical information about it.
The research has paved the way to more fascinating study about Mars, which has only gained prominence among planets for human exploration, seen as the likely location for potential colonisation.
Milestones In Mars Missions
Apart from Mariner 4 in 1964, several other missions have been conducted to explore more about Mars and its surroundings.
Here are some of these milestones:
- In 1971, we had the first successful soft landing on Mars, which marked another significant step in human exploration of the red planet.
- Four years later, Viking 1 and 2 ensured successful missions to land on Mars, send back high-resolution images and conduct experiments to search for life.
- European Space Agency’s Mars Express went to the red planet in 2003 and orbited its surface to collect more information and data.
- Back in 2004, NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers found evidence of past water activity in a great development on Mars’ habitability.
- In 2012, the Curiosity Rover became the first rover to land on Mars and continue the exploration missions by studying its surface and subsurface.
Future of Red Planet Exploration
The coming years are expected to witness even greater efforts at Red Planet’s exploration.
One of the major developments is NASA’s Artemis Program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon by the mid-2020s. The long-term vision of the program is to establish a lunar base to support deeper space exploration, including Mars.
The European Space Agency’s ExoMars Program is another exciting project.The ExoMars program consists of two major missions. T
he first is based on the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), where the orbiter will be analysing trace gases like methane in Mars’ atmosphere. The other mission, scheduled for launch in 2028, will have the Rosalind Franklin rover searching for signs of life in the planet’s geology.
Nibandh Vinod is a seasoned journalist with nearly three decades of experience, known for his in-depth coverage of events and festivals, as well as his expertise in SEO-driven content at News18.com. A tech-savv…Read More
Nibandh Vinod is a seasoned journalist with nearly three decades of experience, known for his in-depth coverage of events and festivals, as well as his expertise in SEO-driven content at News18.com. A tech-savv… Read More
November 28, 2025, 07:20 IST
