Dec 052025
Pathfinder was launched toward Mars in 1996. The craft traveled for 211 days and 309 million miles to reach the surface of Mars on July 4, 1997. A small rover named Sojourner (named after Sojourner Truth) traveled about the surface and analyzed rocks and the surface of the planet. The two vehicles (both significantly outliving scientific estimates) sent back 2.3 billion bits of data before transmissions stopped on September 27, 1997. Children can view some of the images of Mars at: Pathfinder.