Introduction to the special section: The Mars Global Surveyor mission

Since the launch of Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) in November 1996, it has returned more information about Mars than all previous missions combined. The scientific impact of MGS has been extraordinary. In many ways we now know Mars to be a very different planet than when MGS arrived in 1997. MGS has provided daily global and high resolution images, a global topographic model better than for Earth, a corresponding gravity model, and a magnetic field model, has mapped the surface composition, and has monitored the atmosphere