If you have ever want to travel to Mars and flee over its dune , volcanoes , and chasms , today is your golden day . Caltech ’s Bruce Murray Laboratory for Planetary Visualization has release the close thing to being physically above the Red Planet . They have published the highest - settlement global range of the Mars ever created .

Theinteractive globewas create using 110,000 images from NASA ’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter ’s black-market - and - white Context Camera ( CTX ) . Each pixel corresponds to an field on Mars that is 25 square meters ( or about 270 square feet ) . In total , it has 5.7 trillion pel and it take six years to complete .

“ I wanted something that would be approachable to everyone , ” Jay Dickson , the picture processing scientist who guide the project and manages the Murray Lab , state in astatement . “ Schoolchildren can habituate this now . My mother , who just move around 78 , can use this now . The goal is to let down the roadblock for people who are concerned in exploring Mars . ”

It is truly an special way of life to see Mars . For example , by navigating to Gale Crater you could see the path that NASA ’s Curiosity has take in its climb of Mount Sharp , and you could see the carved valley ahead . The rover is yet to examine it , butit has spotted the debristhat has flowed down due to water and landslides .

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been study the Red Planet since 2006 and CTX , together with the High - Resolution Imaging Science Experiment ( HiRISE ) and Mars Color Imager , have provided incredible insight on the surface of the planet .

“ For 17 years , MRO has been unwrap Mars to us as no one had seen it before , ” added the deputation ’s project scientist , Rich Zurek of JPL . “ This mosaic is a wonderful newfangled way to explore some of the imaging that we ’ve pull in . ”

Dickson created an algorithm to sew the images found on the characteristic they capture , but 13,000 images still had to be manually stitched together as the algorithm could n’t match them . The contribution that are escape are either yet to be imaged or were befog by cloud or dust .

“ I ’ve wanted something like this for a long time , ” said Laura Kerber , a Mars scientist at JPL who furnish feedback on the new mosaic as it took form . “ It ’s both a beautiful product of fine art and also useful for scientific discipline . ”

Since the genus Beta was free over 120 newspaper have used it , and many more will do so in the futurity .