Wednesday, February 4, 2009

New Google Mars Reveals the Red Planet in 3-D

Mars's massive Victoria Crater is among the landmarks people can explore via high-resolution images in Google Mars 3-D, a new mode launched in February 2009 in the free mapping program Google Earth. Picture courtesy Google

From National Geographic:

Tucked into Monday's media splash for the launch of oceans in Google Earth was another, quieter announcement: A module for exploring Mars is now part of the popular 3-D mapping tool.

Users can soar through alien trenches, see through the eyes of robotic visitors, and toggle between natural color, "night vision," and rainbow-hued topographic views of the red planet.

Virtual Mars is based on pictures from the many orbiters and landers—past and present—that have been sent to study Martian landscapes.

Much of the imagery used in Google Mars 3-D is already publicly available and easy to access on sites across the Internet, noted project leader Noel Gorelick.

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