A new web app from NASA called Mars Trek could help ease your red planet blues. Rather than taking an extremely lengthy and risky interplanetary trip, you can explore Mars in 2D or even 3D from the comfort of your own home or your favorite coffee shop or wherever you can get a good Internet connection.
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An interactive map of the red planet’s surface has been created from images captured over a series of missions.
Our neighbouring planet could be all red and shiny and wonderful but- “a suit with built-in toilet, zero gravity, frozen foods and 7-million kilos of explosives under the butt”- all that a little too much to interest many of us into a space travel (or the fact that no space agency would let us anywhere near its premises).
Special features and known locations on the map can be clicked on for additional insight.
A “Layers” tool allows viewers to layer multiple images of the same view taken from different orbiting cameras. The ability to zoom in for close up views of craters and other objects is missing, but users can control their view.
Mars Trek is primarily an outreach product aimed at students and members of the public who have already been introduced to basic information about Mars and would like to enhance their understanding with some guided investigations of surface features and mission activities, and then conduct their own explorations of Mars by visualizing NASA data in an easy to access way.
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If you don’t know where to start your exploration, the “Bookmarks” tool highlights historically significant locations such as the Spirit rover’s landing site, shown below.
