Virtual Astronaut: How to travel to Mars and the ISS online
Created: 05/29/2022, 20:37
By: Bettina Menzel
Traces of the Mars robot Opportunity, NASA's longest-running rover on Mars, can still be seen on the red planet more than 15 years after it landed.
With Google Maps you can now visit Mars yourself (archive image).
© picture alliance/dpa |
Nasa/Jpl-Caltech/Msss
To fly into space: a dream for many.
Virtually this is now possible - including the original view from the ISS space station.
Navigate through space on Google Maps.
Munich – The German astronaut Matthias Maurer lived on the International Space Station ISS for about six months.
Every day he enjoyed the view of the earth from the “Cupola” viewing dome.
This is exactly where space tourists can now "fly" themselves - and also to Mars, Mercury, Venus and many other celestial bodies.
At least virtually, on Google Maps.
Astronaut Matthias Maurer looks at Earth from the dome of the International Space Station ISS.
© NASA/ESA-M.Maurer/dpa/archive image
Google Maps: View from the observation dome of the International Space Station
With Google Maps (almost) all places on earth can be visited.
When the new technology came out, it was revolutionary.
The Netflix series
The Billion Dollar Code
tells about this time and the history of Terravision, on whose code and inspiration Google Maps is said to be based.
However, a corresponding lawsuit went out in favor of Google.
Either way, the US group is constantly evolving.
Now he also wants to make it possible to leave the earth and travel virtually into space.
German astronaut Matthias Maurer enjoyed the view from the ISS as "his favorite pastime," as he
told the editorial network Germany
.
The earth is a "magical planet".
However, he also discovered things that he didn't like so much - burning primeval forests, for example, or glaciers that were larger according to maps.
German astronaut Matthias Maurer works on the International Space Station (ISS) during a spacewalk.
The original view from the ISS is now available on Google Maps.
© NASA/ESA/dpa/archive image
Virtual excursion into space: This is how you can visit Mars and Co. with a click of the mouse
If you want to leave the International Space Station ISS and go on a space trip, go to
www.google.com/maps/space/mars
Different planets and other celestial bodies to choose from.
For example, you can travel to the moon and take a flight over the surface of our satellite.
Everything is mapped so that every major crater and level is named.
This means that virtual all-round visitors see even more than the astronauts themselves. Because the moon does not look spectacularly different from the ISS, as Maurer explains.
"Unfortunately, the moon is the same size as you see it on Earth because the distance to the moon is almost exactly the same," the astronaut told
Geo
magazine .
Because the distance between the earth and the moon is 400,000 kilometers.
"And we only fly with the ISS at an altitude of about 400 kilometers," the German continued.
The dwarf planets Ceres and Io, the innermost of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter, and Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede can also be visited virtually using Google Maps.
This pleases amateur astronomers as well as fans of the science fiction series "The Expanse".
These celestial bodies appear familiar to the latter as scenes from the story surrounding James Holden's crew.
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The virtual trip into space is free and worth a try.
Because if you really want to travel into space, you would currently have to pay 50 million euros per person for a visit to the ISS.
At least that's how much it cost the first completely private crew on board the ISS.
