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Secret Mars Base found in Google Maps

May 19, 2017

Thank you to GEB reader James for sending us this amazing find. If you go to this location in Google Maps / Mars, you will find an image of a secret Mars Base:

After doing some research, we discovered that it is actually a Google Data Centre being built in anticipation of future Mars settlement.

So is it real? Well given that Google posted about it on March 31st, just before April Fool’s day, we think not.

We have previously looked at how to get HiRISE imagery into Google Mars. So we decided to try and find out which image Google used. We are fairly sure it is a section of HiRISE image ESP_037117_1755 captured on 27 June 2014. Unfortunately, Google has only included the colour portion of the image in Google Maps and Curiosity is just off the edge. However, if you know where to look, you can see Curiosity’s tracks going across the image.


Curiosity’s tracks, as seen in Google Maps / Mars


Curiosity as seen in the original image (not included in Google Maps).

If you want to explore the imagery more in Google Mars, download this KML file. We have included a screen shot from Google Maps of the Secret Mars Base, a low resolution version of the original HiRISE image, and a higher resolution version of the relevant area.
We have also marked the location of Curiosity at the time, and if you turn on the Google Mars layer: Mars Gallery->Rovers and Landers->MSL Curiosity Rover (USA)->Traverse Path, then it will help you trace the rover’s tracks in the higher resolution image. We have done our best to line up the imagery with the track. Turn off Mars Gallery->Rovers and Landers->MSL Curiosity Rover (USA)->Gale crater landing site as it adds imagery which will obscure the images in the KML file.

For a number of other posts where we managed to track down almost all the residents of Mars see here.

Filed Under: Site News Tagged With: mars

Residents of Mars part 2

November 1, 2016

This is part 2 of our list of Mars residents that we started last week. Since last week’s post some new imagery of the Schiaparelli landing site has been released. However, it is not yet available on the HiRISE download site. There is a marker showing that an image was captured of the location with the HiRISE camera, but as of this writing, there is a message saying that the image is currently unavailable.

Mars Pathfinder lander and Sojourner rover
Mars Pathfinder’s rover Sojourner was the first rover on Mars. However, it was relatively small at 65 cm long, 48 cm wide, 30 cm tall and weighing 10.5 kg. It can be seen near the lander in Google Mars imagery:


Yes, that’s as far as it got, in 83 sols (Martian days).


Parachute and backshell.

Viking 1 lander
The Viking 1 lander and its backshell are visible in Google Mars imagery, but we were unable to find its parachute.


Viking 1 lander


Viking 1 backshell

Viking 2 lander
The Viking 2 lander is just visible in Google Mars imagery, but we were able to find a better one which also shows the locations of the backshell and heat shield.


Top left: Backshell. Top right: Heat shield. Bottom: Viking 2 lander.

Mars 3 lander (USSR)
Google Mars does not have high resolution imagery of the Mars 3 lander, but we were able to find a HiRISE image of the parachute.


Mars 3 parachute.

Mars 6 lander (USSR)
There are several images of what is believed to be the Mars 6 lander’s crash site, but as far as we can tell, none of the lander’s components have been identified.

No imagery
It appears no high resolution imagery has been captured for the locations of:
* Mars Polar Lander
* Mars 2 lander (USSR)

To see all the locations above, including some imagery overlays and last week’s locations, download this KML file.

Filed Under: Site News Tagged With: google mars, mars

Schiaparelli’s resting place and other Mars residents

October 27, 2016

Last week a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) attempted to land on Mars. The landing was not successful and the lander, named Schiaparelli, crash landed on the planet.

NASA released these ‘before and after’ photos of the landing site captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) showing what is believed to be the parachute (white spot) and landing spot (dark patch).

We thought this would be a good time to see what other Mars landers / rovers can be seen in Google Mars or MRO imagery.

Curiosity

The rover Curiosity has particularly good coverage. We already managed to find it in an image from March 30th, 2016, which we showed you last week in this post. However, there is also good imagery of its landing area, including an image of it while still descending by parachute!


Top Left: Sky Crane. Top Right: Parachute on ground. Bottom Left: Rover on ground, 24 hours after landing. Bottom Right: Descent by parachute.

Also see here for a time-lapse of the parachute blowing about in the wind.

Opportunity

The rover Opportunity is not far from Schiaparelli’s crash site, but far enough that it probably could not get there to investigate.


In this image from August 26th, 2016, Opportunity just looks like a rock.

The location above was identified with the help of this thread which keeps track of Opportunity.


Top Left: Parachute. Top Right: Landing base. Bottom Left: Heat shield. Bottom Right: Track and multiple images of rover.

Spirit
The rover Spirit is no longer active, but we can see it in its final resting place as well as its parachute, lander and heat shield.


Top Left: Parachute. Top Right: Landing base. Bottom Left: Heat shield. Bottom Right: Final resting place.

Phoenix
The Pheonix Lander has good imagery in Google Mars showing the heat shield, the back shell, the parachute and the lander.


Top Left: Lander, Top Right: Heat Shield, Bottom right: back shell and parachute.

Beagle 2
The very best image of the Beagle 2 is these two white dots:

Also seen here in colour. Its parachute and rear cover are equally difficult to make out, but we have marked their locations in the KML file.

The above are just some of the residents of Mars. We will continue with the rest next week.

See the imagery and placemarks in Google Mars with this KML file.

Don’t forget to turn on Google Mars’s ‘Landers/Rovers’ layer for extra imagery, tracks, panoramas, 3D models and more.

To be continued …..

Filed Under: Sightseeing Tagged With: mars

Finding Curiosity with Mars HiRISE imagery in Google Earth

October 21, 2016

Yesterday we had a look at the track of the Curiosity rover in Google Earth. We noticed that there is some very high resolution imagery of the area. We have previously experimented with getting Mars imagery into Google Earth but did not find any imagery with such high resolution. So we decided to have another look.

It appears that there are multiple orbiters each with multiple imaging systems and each camera is managed by a different organisation. The imagery we looked at previously is from the THEMIS instrument on the orbiter Mars Global Surveyor. It appears that the highest resolution imagery comes form the HiRISE instrument on the same orbiter. We found that it is possible to access the imagery at this website which also allows access to imagery from three other instruments, CTX, MOC and CRISM.

We looked for an image in the location of Curiosity and chose this one. The image is compressed using jp2, similar to Sentinel imagery. We used a tool called Irfanview to convert it to jpg. Since it is quite a large image, we chose to crop it to the location we are interested in. We then placed the image in Google Earth using an image overlay and matched it to the imagery already available.

The image was captured on March 30th, 2016. So, we used Fernando Nogal’s KML track for curiosity that we looked at yesterday to determine where Curiosity was on that date. And sure enough, we can actually see Curiosity!


Curiosity as seen in HiRISE imagery.

This suggests that it may be possible to identify the final resting place of the Schiaparelli lander, which is currently believed to have crash landed, once imagery of its expected landing zone becomes available.

To see the image in Google Earth download this KML file.

Filed Under: Site News Tagged With: curiosity, google mars, mars

The Curiosity rover track

October 20, 2016

With the recent attempted landing on Mars we thought it might be a good time to discuss another Mars inhabitant, NASA’s Curiosity rover.

GEB reader Fernando Nogal let us know about a KML file he maintains which tracks the path of Curiosity on Mars. It can be found in this thread on unmannedspaceflight.com.

Google Mars has a built-in layer showing the locations of various landers and rovers on Mars, including Curiosity and its track. However, the track displayed for Curiosity does not match up with Fernando’s version. A look at the terrain in the imagery shows that Fernando’s version is the more accurate one, as you can clearly see that Curiosity followed certain terrain features to avoid driving over obstacles. This is with the “Rovers and Landers” layer turned on, which includes some HiRISE/CTX imagery. With it turned off, the default Google Mars imagery appears to be out of alignment with both tracks.

We have not been able to identify the source of the Google Mars track, but while trying to find out more about it, we discovered this map which shows yet another version of the track, which is ever further out of alignment.

So what is going on? Our guess is that this is because Mars does not have a GPS system in place and the less accurate tracks are being determined by dead reckoning using Curiosity’s data about the directions and distances it drives whereas Fernando’s track is based on identifying features in the imagery the rover sends back.

If any of our readers knows more about this or where the Google Mars track is sourced from, please let us know in the comments.

Regarding yesterday’s landing attempt, as of this writing it appears that the orbiter managed a successful orbit insertion but the lander’s status is uncertain.

We also came across this interesting article about historical maps of Mars and how our knowledge of the red planet has improved over time. A number of the historical maps can be found in the layer “Mars Gallery->Historic Maps”. It is interesting that older maps had South at the top. Google Earth has a similar layer called “Rumsey Historical Maps” found in the “Gallery” layer that features historical maps of Earth.

Filed Under: Site News Tagged With: curiosity, google mars, mars

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