CU Boulder Celebrates Mars Milestone

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BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4)- University of Colorado Boulder scientists are celebrating a big milestone in space history. It's been 50 years since NASA's first brush with Mars.

(credit: NASA)

CU Boulder Mars expert professor Nick Schneider says the Mars connection to Colorado is a big one.

(credit: NASA)

The Mariner spacecraft was sent out for Mars exploration with help from CU Boulder in 1969.

(credit: NASA)

"We put an instrument on this that discovered a cloud of the used to be a part of water escaping from Mars, that was 50 years ago," said Schneider.

(credit: CBS)

CU Boulder has been building instruments to measure planetary atmospheres since the 1940s, even before NASA was created.