Venera 9: first images of Venus's surface
Venera 9: primeras imágenes de la superficie de Venus
- Date
- 22 de octubre de 1975 · confidence high
- Place
- Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
- Credited to
- Lavochkin (Georgy Babakin)
- Field
- Movement
What was discovered
Venera 9 sent the first black-and-white photograph of Venus's surface: a stony ground under dim light. Venera 13 obtained the first colour images in 1982.
Venera 9 worked about 53 minutes. Mars 3 (1971) may have emitted a fragment of an image, but it is considered incomplete; the first image of any other solid surface was Luna 9's (1966).
What it led to
- comparative geology of Venus (basalts)
- camera designs that survive 460 °C
- Magellan radar mapping of Venus