[meteorite-list] NASA and Microsoft Provide Mars 3-D Close Encounter

[Ron Baalke]

July 12, 2010

Dwayne Brown 
Headquarters, Washington                               
202-358-1726 
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov 

Michael Mewhinney/Rachel Hoover 
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. 
650-604-3937/650-604-0643 
michael.s.mewhinney at nasa.gov, rachel.hoover at nasa.gov 

Rapid Response Department 
Waggener Edstrom Worldwide 
503-443-7070 
rapidres at waggeneredstrom.com 
RELEASE: 10-163

NASA AND MICROSOFT PROVIDE MARS 3-D CLOSE ENCOUNTER

WASHINGTON -- NASA and Microsoft Research are bringing Mars to life 
with new features in the WorldWide Telescope software that provide 
viewers with a high-resolution 3-D map of the Red Planet. 

Microsoft's online virtual telescope explores the universe using 
images NASA spacecraft return from other worlds. Teams at NASA's Ames 
Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and Microsoft in Redmond, 
Wash., jointly developed the software necessary to make NASA's 
planetary data available in WorldWide Telescope. 

"By providing the Mars dataset to the public on the WorldWide 
Telescope platform, we are enabling a whole new audience to 
experience the thrill of space," said Chris C. Kemp, chief technology 
officer for information technology at NASA Headquarters in 
Washington. 

The fully-interactive images and new NASA data will allow viewers to 
virtually explore Mars and make their own scientific discoveries. New 
features include the highest resolution fully interactive map of Mars 
ever created, realistic 3-D renderings of the surface of the planet 
and video tours with two NASA scientists, James Garvin of NASA's 
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and Carol Stoker of 
Ames. 

Garvin's tour walks viewers through the geological history of Mars and 
discusses three possible landing sites for human missions there. Each 
landing site highlights a different geological era of the planet. 
Stoker's tour addresses the question "Is there life on Mars?" and 
describes the findings of NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander. 

"Our hope is that this inspires the next generation of explorers to 
continue the scientific discovery process," said Ames Center Director 
S. Pete Worden. 

The Intelligent Robotics Group at Ames Research Center developed open 
source software that runs on the NASA Nebula cloud computing platform 
to create and host the high resolution maps. The maps contain 74,000 
images from Mars Global Surveyor's Mars Orbiter Camera and more than 
13,000 high-resolution images of Mars taken by the Mars 
Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment 
(HiRISE) camera. Each individual HiRISE image contains more than a 
billion pixels. The complete maps were rendered into image mosaics 
containing more than half a billion smaller images. 

"These incredibly detailed maps will enable the public to better 
experience and explore Mars," said Michael Broxton, a research 
scientist in the Intelligent Robotics Group at Ames. "The 
collaborative relationship between NASA and Microsoft Research was 
instrumental for creating the software that brings these new Mars 
images into people's hands, classrooms and living rooms." 

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) reached the planet in 2006 to 
begin a two-year primary science mission. The mission has returned 
more data about Mars than all other spacecraft sent to the Red 
Planet. The Global Surveyor began orbiting Mars in 1997. The 
spacecraft operated longer than any other Mars spacecraft, ceasing 
operations in November 2006. 

"Microsoft has a long-standing relationship with NASA that has enabled 
us to jointly provide the public with the ability to discover space 
in a new way," said Tony Hey, corporate vice president of the 
External Research Division of Microsoft Research. 

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages MRO for 
NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin 
Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. HiRISE is operated by 
the University of Arizona and was built by Ball Aerospace & 
Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Malin Space Science Systems in 
San Diego provided and operated the Mars Orbiter Camera. 

To learn more and download the WorldWide Telescope, visit: 

http://www.worldwidetelescope.org 

For more information and images of Mars taken by HiRISE, visit: 

http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu 
	
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