Move over, Google Earth. Caltech's here with a fresh 3D tour of Mars

Fancy a Mars flyover? You're in luck, as a team at Caltech just published a 5.7 terapixel mosaic of Mars that can be explored in 3D. And, yes, things like Google Earth have models of Mars, but this one's better, or so we're told. With a resolution of five metres per pixel, the new Global CTX Mosaic of Mars boasts twenty times …

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Now just sit back

And wait for the first privacy complaints - and you've detected life

(unless Google blur out aliens)

[Neil Barnes]

Re: Now just sit back

I'm not convinced they'd recognise it: at a house where I previously lived, they carefully blurred out just one wheel on the car in the drive...

[Paul Herber]

Re: Now just sit back

That's the galactic rim, that is.

[b0llchit]

Re: Now just sit back

Well, google earth is still online. That must be proof that no life exists on earth.

[WolfFan]

Re: Now just sit back

Very little intelligent life, certainly.

[Catkin]

Re: Now just sit back

That sounds very unlikely, something like a million to one.

[Snowy]

Re: Now just sit back

The Martians cities are under the .5% they did not publish.

[Evil Auditor]

Re: Now just sit back

Probably. Where's a manfrommars when you need him to confirm?

I suspect the martians use Earth in a similar fashion as the British used to use Australia...

[Gene Cash]

5.7 trillion pixels

My 128x48 TRS-80 is going to struggle with that!

Seriously though, I heard about this earlier and it ate up 3 or 4 hours flying around looking at stuff. It really is high resolution, though with my shitty network connection I have to wait for stuff to load.

There are already a couple papers out on stuff that's been noticed in this, where they've been pointed back to the raw data and actually discovered new features.

Mariner IV flew by Mars the day I was born, and the story took up the front page of my hometown paper, so I always have a bit of an affinity for Mars. Plus 80% of the SF stories I read growing up were on Mars or about Martians.

And there's a valley on Duna in KSP in honor of Valles Marineris.

[Grunchy]

FlightSim 2020

I think I remember a way to use Google Earth map data instead of Microsoft Bing in FlightSim 2020. Hopefully we finally get some good UFO airframe models to go with.

(Like, finally a modern version of Space Invaders - would be nice.)

[PhilBuk]

VR Version?

Would be nice to have a VR version like Google Earth VR.

Phil.

[andrewj]

Re: VR Version?

I was thinking the same. The only use I can think of that I would have for VR is to be able to zoom around landscapes, the solar system, galaxies, inside the cell etc. Not stupid made-up "worlds".

[heyrick]

Just a shame...

...it isn't possible to turn off those quick links at the bottom. They take up half the screen on mobile (otherwise it works fine on Android).

Otherwise, it's both awesome and mind blowing to wonder around another world. The topological dataset adds in height colouring so you can get an idea of the peculiar Martian landscape, and marvel at the cliffs that must be a couple of kilometers high.

(could also do with latitude/longitude lines, it's really easy to get lost!)

[lvm]

google earth had Mars for years

only desktop version though, not available in the newfangled web nonsense

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: google earth had Mars for years

Yes, but Google Earth was using an older much lower resolution.

[ThatOne]

Oops

My, this is really brand new and handmade: They forgot to change the page title (currently it says "AweSplash - Free HTML Splash Page"!)...

[sitta_europea]

Doesn't seem to work in my browser.

[Potemkine!]

the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) either hasn't snapped shots of an area or the images weren't high enough quality to include.

Nah, everybody knows it's because these shots show alien ships.