"THE BEAUTY OF VENUS - Big news at the Lab last week was the exciting flyby of Venus by Mariner 10 and the return of the first pictures.... Spiral-like markings, seen only in ultraviolet light, indicate smooth, streamlined flows which originate in equatorial regions and spiral toward the pole.... The pattern of dots is on the face of the TV vidicon tube for calibration purposes and can be removed by computer processing." From Universe, the JPL employee newspaper, February 15, 1974.

Mariner 10 was launched in November 1973 and reached Venus on February 5, 1974, coming within 5800 kilometers (3600 miles). The images above, used in an exhibit about Mariner 10, show the various cloud layers and patterns such as belts, streaks, rings and waves. The Mariner 10 spacecraft provided about 4,000 images of Venus.