Mars Odyssey Spacecraft has made the most accurate maps of the Red planet till date. Through those maps we can virtually explore the surface of the planet and observe the smallest details of the planet’s surface. None of the previous maps have given such a clear and accurate image of the entire surface of the planet even though they had higher resolution.
One of the Odyssey project scientists at JPL, Jeffery Plaut said “The Mars Odyssey THEMIS team has assembled a spectacular product that will be the base maps for Mars researchers for many years to come. The map lays the framework for global studies of properties such as the mineral composition and physical nature of the surface materials.”
Orbiting around the planet he spacecraft has sent back as many a 21,000 images of the planet in a period of eight years since the craft is orbiting the planet. The mission managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory began when the Mars Odyssey spacecraft was launched in April 2001 and it reached Mars in October. All this was possible because of the powerful Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, a multi-band infrared camera aboard the spacecraft. All the pictures were then put up together to form a complete map of the planet. Enthusiast can help themselves around the entire surface of the planet by going through the mosaic of images, and the full details of the surface of the planet is available right a click away at full zoom the smallest surface, which appear 330 feet (100 meters) wide.
The map is posted online by the researchers at Arizona State University’s Mars Space Flight Facility in Tempe, Arizona for anyone who wants a close picture of the Earth’s neighboring planet. These maps are a join effort by the researchers at Mars Space Flight Facility who have worked closely with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California to the maps their present complete shape. The maps can even be downloaded in sections and full resolution to be saved to your desktops for any future interests in the planet. But this privilege is available only with the users with a large bandwidth, powerful computers and software capable of processing images in the gigabyte range.
You can to contribute in the exploration of mars by aligning the images to a certain number of pixel’s accuracy. More details can be sought from the NASA’s website “Be a Martian” where you can give in your contributions.