Life on Mars

Google has a continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds and organize their information. They have a map of where some guys you may have heard of landed and have plans to establish a lunar base (Google Copernicus)too. Google Moon was launched on the anniversary of the first moon landing by Apollo 11. Google Copernicus is scheduled to open on the centennial anniversary of that same landing–July 20, 2069.

While that’s impressive, Google never rests on their laurels and now they’ve extended their reach to the red planet.

But unlike the lunar base and Google Moon, Google Mars is much closer to the real thing. Posted this morning at Google Labs, Google Mars allows you to view the planet in three ways: elevation, “visible” and infrared. Points are plotted not by cities, states and countries like they are here on Earth but by regions, spacecraft, stories, mountains, canyons, dunes, plains, ridges and craters.

The plan according to Barry over at Search Engine Watch, is to add a Google Earth-like desktop feature for Mars sometime in the future. In the About Google Mars page, you can learn more about the project and Mars, including the fact that the red planet really is more the color of butterscotch.

Yum, butterscotch.

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About the Author

Susan Esparza is the Senior Editor at Bruce Clay, Inc. She joined the company in November 2004 and has written extensively for clients and internal publications. Search Engine Optimization All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies by Bruce Clay and Susan Esparza, is available now. She also knows where the knives and forks go in a buffet line. The latter makes her invaluable to Bruce Clay, Inc.