This atlas is result of two Viking Orbiter spacecraft missions which took place from 1976 to 1979, which took medium- to high-resolutions photos of the whole surface of the planet Mars.
The maps from this atlas follow the division of Mars's surface into 30 quadrangles labeled MC-XX, where XX is the number of the quadrangle. Each of the quadrangle has assigned it's own name based on the albedo observed and is presented in 4 maps:
- photomosaic map, combined together from various photos of the surface
- shaded relief map, based on the photomosaic map, drawn with an airbrush
- the same shaded relief map, augmented by a nomenclature, elevation contour lines and sometimes an albedo patterns
- index map of the source photos that were used to create the photomosaic map
The Appendix A contains an alphabetical index of all defined Mars relief features like craters and valleys, including their latitude, longitude, diameter and supplemental information about the name. Most of the Mars features' names in this atlas have been used for the first time in this atlas, because they were simply unknown before the Mariner 9 missions. Appendixes B and C provide interesting information about how the map data were collected and the mapping techniques which were used to create the first detailed maps of the whole surface of Mars.
