NASA releases interactive Mars map

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This was published 8 years ago

NASA releases interactive Mars map

By Nicky Phillips
Updated

If you're impressed by the capabilities of Google Earth, prepared to be amazed by a virtual tour of another planet.

NASA has just released a website that allows people to explore Mars without leaving home.

Mars Trek, an interactive map, lets users roam the red planet in 2D and 3D and zoom into specific areas, including its vast valleys and volcanoes.

You can also navigate to the landing sites of various rovers and robotic spacecrafts including Curiosity, Opportunity, Spirit and Pheonix.

NASA's new site lets you explore the red planet.

NASA's new site lets you explore the red planet.

The interactive map gives people a sense of the sheer size of the pockmarked red planet and many of its features. About two Greater Sydney Basins could fit inside the Gale Crater, where the Curiosity rover landed in August 2012.

The surface map has been created from images captured during a series of spacecraft voyages and orbiters. NASA took its first close-up image of Mars in 1965.

There are currently five probes orbiting Mars, including three owned by NASA. Their Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter travel near-circular orbits. The European Space Agency's Mars Express, NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) and India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), travel elliptical orbits.

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On Mars Trek can also track the position of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in real time.

The map data can be displayed in a globe form for a broader look at the planet, or zoomed right in, like Google Earth.

The map data can be displayed in a globe form for a broader look at the planet, or zoomed right in, like Google Earth.

In 2009 Google released its own in-browser map of Mars. With the help of NASA scientists at the Mars Space Flight Facility it was originally created with data captured from two NASA missions, the 2001 Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor.

It now contains high resolution images from other Mars missions.

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