Martian landscape on smartphone? New map of Mars created from data collected by NASA

A team at the US Geological Survey's (USGS) Astrogeology Science Centre generated a map of planet Mars using the treasure trove of data which was collected by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The newly-generated map of Mars will make viewing the Martian landscape more easier than before, allowing people to navigate through it even on their smartphones.

The new map, which has been compiled with the help of cloud computing and supercomputers, will be providing people with a high-resolution, three-dimensional experience of the otherworldly terrain of planet Mars.

Map contains 4,800 digital terrain models, 155,000 images

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A team at the US Geological Survey's (USGS) Astrogeology Science Centre processed the map which consists of around 4,800 digital terrain models (DTMs) and has more than 155,000 images of the red Martian surface.

"Now anyone on the planet with a smartphone can search, use and marvel at these data," stated team leader Jay Laura, of the Astrogeology Science Centre (ASC), in a statement.

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"These data are important because they democratise the availability of high-quality Mars topographic data," added Laura. "Getting consistent, well-aligned results is not easy. We felt it was important to generate and release these products so that others could freely access the data. When these data are highly accessible, anyone can contribute to scientific discovery," he stated.

The team has used the data on Martian topography collected by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's (MRO) Context Camera. The MRO Context Camera can capture images with a resolution of around sixmetresper pixel and can cover an area of around 18.5 miles (30 kilometres) wide and 100 miles (160 km) long.

The team then produced the DTMs by overlapping two images of a similar area, which were then processed using a supercomputer to create a detailed 3D view.

"The process is similar to how visual data collected by both our eyes is processed by the brain to generate our sense of depth perception and create a 3D picture of our surroundings," team members stated.

Maps of Mars free, accessible to general public

Speaking about the data used to create maps, Laura said, "These data are ripe for discovery and use by machines and humans. This data release means that the HiRISE data set can now be seamlessly leveraged by machine-learning scientists."

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Amazon's Open Data Registry is hosting the data which is free for anyone to use. To ensure that the data is easy to find and download for the general public, search tools for users have been released by the USGS.

"With data releases like this, USGS is taking the lead to develop and release analysis-ready planetary science data," Laura stated.

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