PLANETARY MUSINGS

Entries for March 2006

Google Mars

It had to happen eventually... Google has decided that one planet just is not enough. 

http://mars.google.com/

It looks like the THEMIS folks at ASU have gotten together with Google to provide some easily accessible data from Mars.  It is pretty limited, but you can zoom around my favorite map of Mars, one made using MOLA laser altimeter data, as well as look at some recent visible and infrared data.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter makes it to Mars

The largest and most powerful tool for learning about Mars has just arrived in orbit around that planet.  the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has the largest camera ever sent to another planet (HiRISE), a hyperspectral instrument (Crism), and a sounding radar (SHARAD) all of which will send back incredible amounts of data about the red planet.  Indeed, it is expected that this one mission will send back 10 times more data than all the other missions to Mars (past and present) combined.  The next few years are going to bring some incredible discoveries.  Congratulations to the whole MRO team!

Check out the news story or go straight to the source at JPL's MRO website.