Time for a new topic. We will look at Viking 2 later.
Pop quiz - which was the first solar system object after Earth and the Moon to be mapped? You at the back? - sorry, it's not Mars. No, the first after Earth and the Moon was Venus, by Francesco Bianchini, working in Rome. He made a globe of Venus in 1727 and published maps in a book in 1728. Of course the features are illusions, probably contrast effects in the eye.
#maps #venus #bianchini