Google Mars

If there is something Google has done that is worth-while it  is giving  us a Google Mars.  If you have a chance you can download Google Earth and select the planet Mars you can go on a journey that is quite breath-taking.  You can go find the current rover missions and see where they have gone and pictures of the places they have visited. You can see places of interest, landing sites from the Soviets and NASA.

So lets take a look at the Opportunity Rover which landed in January 2004. Its mission was to land in the Meridiani Planum a nice flat surface. It actually landed and rolled into a crater (later called Eagle Crater). The mission was to head to Victoria Crater and the expected life of the rover was 90 days.  So far the mission has lasted 2000 days. There is excellent information on updates from NASA if you want further details.

There are actually 2 rovers, Opportunity and Spirit each landed on opposite sides of the planet.

Opportunity Rover

Here is a picture taken by the Rover after it spent 2 weeks getting out of Eagle Crater.

Eagle Crater taken by the Opportunity Rover

So this is where Google Mars comes in. Lets have a look at the path taken by Opportunity. I took this image from Google Mars.

Opportunity Journey in Google Mars

You can also zoom in on Victoria Crater. As you get closer there is an image you can view of the edge of the crater taken by the Rover.

Nearing Victoria Crater

Now lets take a look again at Google Mars and see where the shot was taken from.

Google Image of Victoria Crater

We can see the tracks in the sand and the location of the picture relative to the crater. You can start to experience the journey and follow the progress of a small rover on another world. You don’t get to do that every day. Well actually now you can…..