Microsoft and NASA have teamed up to bring you and your humble desktop PC some of the highest-resolution images of Mars currently available. Using a combination of satellite imagery and elevation models, Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope project has created an impressively detailed 3-D map of the surface of the Red Planet. The interactive tour, which simulates flying through Martian canyons and provides extreme surface detail (provided by the Mars rovers), took three years and over 100 computers to process and assemble. Its information has been stitched together from several different sources, including Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), the 40-year-old Viking probes and the still-flying Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Those who wish to explore the Martian surface can download the free desktop client (Windows only, of course) or use the Silverlight-powered Web-based version. We had some issues with the Web client on our Linux and Mac machines, so you non-Microsoft fans might be a little disappointed. Still, it’s worth checking out if you have even a passing curiosity about our sister planet.
- The image Microsoft doesn't want you to see: Too tired to stay awake, the Chinese workers earning just 34p an hour (64.1%)
- House Bans File Sharing By Government Employees (48.1%)
- 3-D Images Reveal New Composition of the Sun (20.3%)
- Computer blow to Europe's Goce gravity satellite (17.9%)
- Microsoft has launched Windows 7 Phone Operating System (16%)
- Microsoft and Yahoo Form Search Alliance (16%)
- Government is Watching You in More Ways than One! (16%)
- Nose scanning techniques could sniff out criminals (16%)
- Greenpeace issues warning about data center power (16%)
- First live 3D broadcast to rock Japanese airwaves on May 16 (16%)
- New Trojan asteroid found in Neptune's dead zone (RANDOM - 4.2%)
