Mars in fiction the past; Mars is a setting rather than a goal. Mariner 4 in July 1965 found that Mars—contrary to expectations—is heavily cratered, with a very thin atmosphere. No canals were found; while scientists did not believe that Mars was a moist planet, the lack of surface water surprised them. Science fiction had so influenced real explorations of the planet, however—Carl Sagan was among the many fans who became scientists—that after Mariner 9 in 1971-1972, craters were named after Wells, Burroughs, and other authors. The Mariner and Viking space probes confirmed that the Martian environment is extremely hostile to life. By
Cydonia (region of Mars) two computer engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. DiPietro and Molenaar discovered the two misfiled images, Viking frames 035A72 and 070A13, while searching through NASA archives. More than 20 years after the "Viking 1" images were taken, a succession of spacecraft visited Mars and made new observations of the Cydonia region. These spacecraft have included NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (1997–2006) and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2006–), and the European Space Agency's "Mars Express" probe (2003–). In contrast to the relatively low resolution of the Viking images of Cydonia, these new platforms afford much improved resolution. For instance, the "Mars Express"