NASA Mars Odyssey Releases Most Perfect Martian Plan Constantly

NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter, launched technique back in April 2001, reached Mars in October of that year and began its operations in February of 2002. For the past eight and a half years, the outpost has been snapping photos, using its multi-band infrared camera.

That camera, called THEMIS (THermal EMission Imaging System), managed to take over 21,000 photos of the surface of Mars as its work began. NASA’s Jet impulsion Laboratory, in collaboration with researchers at Arizona State University’s Mars Space Flight Facility, has been working on this map for years, and is finally able to show it off to the world.

Those 21,000 photos have been, in NASA’s words, smoothed, matched, blended and cartographically restricted to make a giant mosaic. The ultimate outcome is almost Google-Maps-like experience that allows panning and zooming with the click or swipe of a mouse. You can zoom in attractive far–the smallest surface facts that can be seen are about 100 meters wide, which is a new record for photography of Mars.