Flying to Mars and exploring the red planet - which is rather difficult in reality, is now possible with a virtual mosaic of NASA images.
Pasadena – Mars has been a popular space travel destination for many years.
Several rovers from the US space agency Nasa have already explored the red planet or are still exploring it.
In addition, several space probes orbit Mars to explore it from a bird's eye view.
Now laypersons can also explore the red planet – from the comfort of their own computer.
An interactive mosaic shows the entire sphere of the planet and makes it possible to virtually fly over its rugged surface or to be taken to a specific region with a mouse click.
For example, you can look at Olympus Mons – more than 22 kilometers high and almost 600 kilometers in diameter, it is the largest volcano and the highest mountain in the solar system.
With a click of the mouse you can also “beam” yourself to the areas where the active Mars rovers “Curiosity” and “Perseverance” are researching.
But you can also visit and explore regions where the now inactive Nasa Rovers “Spirit” and “Opportunity” were active.
Surname: | Mars |
|---|---|
Type: | rocky planet |
surface | 144,800,000 km² |
Distance from the sun: | 227.9 million km |
Orbital period around the sun: | 687 days |
moons: | Phobos and Deimos |
Visit the largest volcano in the solar system with NASA images of Mars
A virtual visit to the Mariner Valleys (Valles Marineris), a rift valley system that is 4000 kilometers long and up to 700 kilometers wide and up to 7000 meters deep, is also particularly impressive.
The Valles Marineris is believed to be one of the largest rift valley systems in the solar system - nearly 10 times longer, 20 times wider and five times deeper than the Grand Canyon on Earth.
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The red planet Mars.
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© imago/Lia Koltyrina
The images from which the Mars mosaic was painstakingly assembled came from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft, which has been orbiting the red planet since 2006.
Day by day, MRO provides images of the surface that have now been used by the Bruce Murray Laboratory for Planetary Visualization to create the interactive mosaic.
110,000 images from Mars invite you to explore
110,000 images from the CTX black-and-white camera on the MRO spacecraft were used for this. One pixel of the huge image represents around 25 square meters of the surface of Mars.
"I wanted something that would be accessible to everyone," explains project leader Jay Dickson in a statement.
“School children can use it.
My mother, who just turned 78, can use it.
The goal is to lower the barriers for people interested in exploring Mars.”
These things were discovered on Mars - they don't belong there
These things were discovered on Mars - they don't belong there
The "Global CTX Mosaic of Mars" is a project of superlatives: It is the "highest resolution global image of the red planet ever created," according to a statement from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
If the 5.7 terapixel image were printed, it would be large enough to cover the entire Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena.
The project took six years and tens of thousands of hours of work.
Mars mosaic also provides important insights for science
"For 17 years, MRO has been showing us Mars as no one has seen it before," said JPL MRO project scientist Rich Zurek.
"This mosaic is a wonderful new way to explore some of the footage we've collected."
However, the new Mars mosaic is not just for the general public: a beta version has already been used for more than 120 studies.
"I've wanted something like this for a long time," emphasizes Mars researcher Laura Kerber.
"It is a beautiful artefact and at the same time useful for science." The NASA rover Curiosity recently observed a previously unknown phenomenon on Mars.
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List of rubrics: © imago/LiaKoltyrina