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Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Earth and Moon Viewer: Solar System Explorer
With the release of version 3.0, now in production, Earth and Moon Viewer, originally launched on the Web in 1994 as Earth Viewer, now becomes “Earth and Moon Viewer and Solar System Explorer”. In addition to viewing the Earth and its Moon using a variety of image databases, you can now also explore high-resolution imagery of Mercury, Venus, Mars and its moons Phobos and Deimos, the asteroids Ceres and Vesta, and Pluto and its moon Charon. For some bodies multiple image databases are available including spacecraft imagery and topography based upon elevation measurements. You can choose any of the available worlds and image databases from the custom request form. All of the viewing options available for the Earth and Moon can be used when viewing the other bodies with the exception of viewing from an Earth satellite. Imagery is based upon the latest spacecraft data published by the United States Geological Survey Astrogeology Science Center. For example, here is an image of the west part of Valles Marineris with Noctis Labyrinthus at the centre of the image and the three Tharsis volcanoes toward the left. The image is rendered from an altitude of 1000 km using the Viking orbiter global mosaic with 232 metres per pixel resolution.
Posted at April 17, 2018 20:06