NASA has launched a new interactive tool that shows Mars in great detail in an environment similar to Google Earth, and users can move between different parts of the red planet with the click of their mouse.
The incredible CTX Mars interactive and multi-slice image is made up of 110,000 images taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) ground camera, or CTX. In a post on its website, NASA described the instrument as the “world’s sharpest image of the Red Planet,” adding that if printed at 5.7 trillion pixels, it would be large enough to fill the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. cover its capacity of 92542 people.
How to explore Mars with NASA’s new tool
When you visit this interactive image, you will be presented with an angle of view that is somewhat higher than the surface of Mars.
At the bottom of its page, there is a collection of suggestions for places you can visit. With these options, you can start your visit to the Red Planet at Jezero Crater, an ancient dried-up lake bed where NASA’s Endurance rover has been searching for evidence of ancient microbial life for the past few years.
Then, using the available buttons or the mouse, you can zoom in on different points on the planet and, by doing so, check the distance between the Endurance rover and NASA’s other operational instrument, Curiosity. Also, if you find something interesting and plan to visit it again, you can simply bookmark the location using the buttons on the left side of the page.
Jay Dixon, the image processing scientist who leads the project, said:
“I wanted something that was accessible to everyone. Now students can use it too. My mother who just turned 78 can use it too. “The goal of this tool is to reduce the barriers for people interested in exploring Mars.”
