NASA stitched together hundreds of images from their Mars rover Opportunity over several months, creating a stunning panorama that makes the planet look just like it does in good sci-fi movies: alien. And awesome. The space agency has a long history of doing spectacular martian photo shoots.

It was back in the summer of 1976 when ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” was taking over all the airwaves and the Son of Sam was just getting his career started, that NASA landed a spacecraft on Mars and for the first time ever, took photos from the surface. The Viking 1 immediately began beaming back images and here’s what their vintage panorama looked like. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State University)