LONDON: NASA’s new Experience Curiosity website lets users view Mars through the eyes of the rover, using the window in the lower, right corner.
You no longer have to enlist in the Mars One Mission to explore the red planet.
NASA unveiled this week a new simulation called Mars Trek that lets anyone with an Internet connection journey through Mars. The program was launched in time to celebrate the three-year-anniversary of Curiosity’s Mars landing.
Mars Trek is similar to Google Earth. The web-based application will let the public access high-quality visualizations of the planet and review over 50 years of Mars data.
Along with Mars Trek, NASA also unveiled Experience Curiosity, which lets users take on the role of the Curiosity rover and explore all the actual data it has collected.
“This tool has opened my eyes as to how we should first approach roaming on another world, and now the public can join in on the fun,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division in Washington, in a statement. “Our robotic scientific explorers are paving the way, making great progess on the journey to Mars. Together, humans and robots will pioneer Mars and the solar system.”
NASA did not only develop these tools to help citizens explore space, but it’s using them to help plans future Mars missions and locate ideal landing sites. Mars Trek will also help to examine and select candidate sites for the first human exploration mission to Mars in the 2030’s.
NASA also updated its online album of Mars images collected by Curiosity. Some of the images feature new terrain, rocks and hills in the red planet.
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