Monday, March 13, 2006
Mars: We Have It Covered.
byThe red planet is slowly revealing its secrets, and thanks to the Internet, you can get a daily front row seat to what is discovered. The latest wonderment comes from Google and NASA. Working together, they have developed some amazingly detailed maps of Mars that work just like Google maps here on earth.
Last week, the most sophisticated spacecraft ever sent to explore Mars, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, completed a long journey and was successfully inserted into orbit. In a few months, it should begin adding immensely to our knowledge of that planet.
Meanwhile, down on the Martian surface, both the Opportunity and Spirit Martian Rovers continue to send back daily pictures more than two years after landing. A couple of interesting panoramas from the Rovers are here and here. Both Martian Rovers landed about 20 days apart in January 2004. The original mission timeline on these Rovers was only about 90 days, so NASA is getting a real bonus considering both landers are still working well.
You can also get a satellite’s eye view of the planet from the Mars Global Survey and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express.
NASA, it appears, has learned a powerful PR lesson with all this exposure. By using the Internet to bring this amazing science and these images to people the world over, they are creating excitement and perhaps more support for some of their most ambitious upcoming manned missions planned in the next decade.
