NASA has created the most accurate map of Mars ever with imagery from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Researchers at Arizona State University's Mars Space Flight Facility in Tempe, in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif have constructed a global map of the red planet using "nearly 21,000 images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, a multi-band infrared camera on Odyssey," which were collected over the last eight years (via NASA).
The pictures have been smoothed, matched, blended and cartographically controlled to make a giant mosaic. Users can pan around images and zoom into them. At full zoom, the smallest surface details are 330 feet wide. While portions of Mars have been mapped at higher resolution, this map provides the most accurate view so far of the entire planet.
The new map is available at: http://www.mars.asu.edu/maps/?layer=thm_dayir_100m_v11
Advanced users with large bandwidth, powerful computers and software capable of handling images in the gigabyte range can download the full-resolution map in sections at: http://www.mars.asu.edu/data/thm_dir_100m
This new map of Mars goes into far more detail than Google Mars, and offers a full planet mosaic view of the surface, similar to Google Moon (but bigger!). Have fun clicking, zooming and exploring! And if you feel so inspired, "Live on Earth Like You Were Colonizing Mars" is worth re-reading too.
great... i have using google mars before and this new google mars map will make it better...
Cool... i hope we could live in Mars someday.. can we find mars map in the google map?? lol
A global map of the red planet is fascinating. It's amazing what we can do with THEMIS. Technology rules.
I'm fascinated, Sci-Fi movies have always played with the thought of human travel between planets and what not. But I have to say, I feel like this is a huge step in that direction!