[meteorite-list] New Google Mars Site to Feature ASU Mars Images

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Mar 14 10:31:01 2006
Message-ID: <200603131756.k2DHul415176_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2006/03/13/daily7.html

New Google Mars site to feature ASU Mars images
The Business Journal of Phoenix
March 13, 2006

A new planet-spanning Web site -- Google Mars (mars.google.com)
-- launched Monday on what would have been
Mars astronomer Percival Lowell's 151st birthday. At the heart of the
new Web site lies a gigantic picture-puzzle image of Mars created by
researchers at Arizona State University's Mars Space Flight Facility.

The giant mosaic of Mars combines more than 17,000 individual photos
blended together. The photos were taken by ASU's Thermal Emission
Imaging System, or THEMIS, a multiband space camera. Able to take
pictures in 15 visible and infrared colors, THEMIS was designed by ASU
scientists and built by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. It now
orbits Mars aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft.

"Mars scientists the world over use THEMIS photos," says ASU planetary
geologist Phil Christensen, designer and principal investigator for the
THEMIS camera. "It's great that thanks to Google Mars, now everyone,
everywhere can explore this neighbor world using their own computer
browser."

Several areas of Mars with special interest for scientists can be
explored in more detail using the THEMIS infrared mosaic at Google Mars.
These include the giant volcano Olympus Mons; the landing sites for the
two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity; and the equatorial grand canyon
of Mars, Valles Marineris.

The Valles Marineris mosaic, for example, shows more than twice the
detail of the global map.

"Valles Marineris -- or Mariner Valley -- is the kind of place where
scientists want to look at both the small details and the big picture,"
says Christensen. "It's more than just a spectacular sight -- it's also
a geological history book of Mars that we've finally begun to open and
read."

Also Monday, ASU and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory released to
scientists and the public the movie "Flight Into Mariner Valley."
Received on Mon 13 Mar 2006 12:56:46 PM PST