The California Institute of Technology (USA) created the image of Mars with the highest resolution in history. This is a data map Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)NASA spacecraft designed to observe the red planet.
The material is actually a large mosaic created from 110 thousand photos the other, filmed with a black-and-white context camera aboard MRO. It covers nearly 25 square meters of surface area per pixel. How big is it? Well, if printed, it could cover the entire Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
This magnificent image of Mars was taken six years ahead thanks to the efforts of the Bruce Murray Planetary Imaging Laboratory team at the Institute. This is such detailed mapping that rocks, impact craters, and dust swirl trails can be seen in impressive detail.
The image of Mars available to everyone
The image covers 99.5% of the entire surface of Mars. “I wanted something accessible to everyone,” said Jay Dixon, the scientist who led the project. “Schools can already use it. My mom, who just turned 78, can use it. The goal is to lower barriers for people interested in exploring Mars.”
NASA funded the project in 2019. To build the map, Dixon and his colleagues used a feature matching algorithm that aligned all the photos. It was like putting the pieces of a big puzzle together. However, some of the work was manual.
Nails 13,000 images had to be stitched by hand, a process that took almost three years. The Martian atmosphere creates clouds and dust storms that affect the sharpness of photographs and prevent computers from automatically straightening them.
Much of the assembly of this image of Mars was done in the early days of the lockdown declared a coronavirus pandemic. Dixon used his time at home to do this job almost like an artisan. “I can’t wait to see everything people are doing with it and the science it’s unlocking,” the researcher said.
Navigation like never before
The map works with 3D navigation. With one click, you can see the old dry riverbeds of Mars in the image. Users can also visit the Gale and Jezero craters, two regions currently being explored. all-terrain vehicles (cars) NASA persistence and curiosity.
This image of Mars can be viewed in an interactive interface called SceneView, developed by Esri, a geographic information systems company. Such a platform allows you to explore the entire red planet in “outcrop resolution”. The outcrops are small cliffs and individual hills of great interest for the scientific study of Mars.
Source: Hiper Textual
