posted 03-13-2006 12:24 AM               

http://www.google.com/mars/

Produced in collaboration with NASA researchers at Arizona State University, Google Mars has at its heart a gigantic mosaic image of Mars made from 17,000 individual infrared photos taken by THEMIS, the Thermal Emission Imaging System, aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey.

Google Mars includes three different types of data:

• Elevation - A shaded relief map, generated with data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. This map is color-coded by altitude, so you can use the color key at the lower left to estimate elevations.
• Visible - A mosaic of images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. MOC is like the digital camera you have at home. Basically, this is what your eyes would see if you were in orbit around Mars.
• Infrared - A mosaic of infrared images taken by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Warmer areas appear brighter, and colder areas are darker. Clouds and dust in the atmosphere are transparent in the infrared, making this the sharpest global map of Mars that's ever been made.