NASA spacecraft provides most accurate Martian map ever

Washington, July 24 (ANI): A camera aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has helped develop the most accurate global Martian map ever.

The map was constructed using nearly 21,000 images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, a multi-band infrared camera on Odyssey.

The pictures have been smoothed, matched, blended and cartographically controlled to make a giant mosaic.

"This approach lets us remove all instrument distortion, so features on the ground are correctly located to within a few pixels and provide the best global map of Mars to date," said Philip Christensen, principal investigator for THEMIS and director of the Mars Space Flight Facility.

At full zoom, the smallest surface details are 330 feet wide. While portions of Mars have been mapped at higher resolution, this map provides the most accurate view so far of the entire planet.

"The map lays the framework for global studies of properties such as the mineral composition and physical nature of the surface materials," said Jeffrey Plaut, Odyssey project scientist at JPL. (ANI)