Online Tour Of Mars

The Google Earth application has been showing the images of Mars since 2009, but until now most areas of the planet could only be seen in low-resolution. But, now Google has updated its coverage of Mars with high resolution images from a NASA satellite orbiting the red planet, as part of their freely downloadable Google Earth app.

Google Mars updated large amounts of the planet's surface with images from the Context Camera (CTX) on Nasa's satellite namely- Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with a resolution of around 20ft per pixel.

This new update in app also has guided tours of each of the four potential landing sites considered by Nasa for its Curiosity rover, with varieties of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE and CTX images surrounding each sites.

The lander finally set down in the Gale Crater, which the app users can zoom into for a 3D view, and from where the rover has sent back a number of intriguing reports - as well as several photographs of itself.

The google earth app users can switch on a CTX mosaic, which allows them to view and zoom these high-definition images.

Planetary scientist Ryan Anderson, part of the Curiosity's ChemCam team, whispered on his blog, The Martian Chronicles: "This is how easy it should be to use planetary data."

He also wote-

" Google Earth is still not quite up to the task for a lot of scientific purposes, but it is the best way I know of to quickly view Mars data, and it is a treasure trove for anyone with even a passing interest in Mars,"