news
02-16-2016, 11:29 AM
You're probably not planning a trip to the Red Planet (http://start.westnet.ca/newstempch.php?article=news/red-planet/) anytime soon.
But if you do ever end up visiting Mars (http://start.westnet.ca/newstempch.php?article=2015/05/18/live-on-mars-video_n_7019644.html), rest assured you'll have an easy-to-read map (https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/about/news/2016/os-maps-out-of-this-world.html) to help find your way around.
Britain's Ordnance Survey mapping agency used open NASA data to document the terrain on the fourth planet from the Sun.
It posted a map to Flickr Friday that covers 3.8 million square miles (https://www.flickr.com/photos/osmapping/), about 7 percent of Mars' surface.
The map shows the Western Arabia Terra region at a scale of 1 to 4 million. The landing sites of the Mars Pathfinder (http://mars.nasa.gov/programmissions/missions/past/pathfinder/) in northwest Ares Vallis and the Opportunity rover (http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/home/), east of Margaritifer Terra, are both featured.
Agency cartographer Chris Wesson spent several months deconstructing the data and creating the map (http://www.sciencealert.com/britain-s-official-mapping-agency-makes-a-handy-map-to-help-get-around-mars).
"It was a little hard at first (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35579849) to actually understand the data itself in terms of things like the elevation and the scale and so on," he told the BBC.
"But actually the physical process was almost identical to what was used to make an Earth map, or any OS map."
Asked why the map of the planet wasn't more red, Wesson revealed on the agency blog that it was too dominant a color (https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/blog/2016/02/21157/?awc=2495_1455559215_0822bc952e72d37815914a0e56547 ce3).
"Using shades of just one color makes it harder to see and picture the landscape and all the features within it from a map," he said.
Scientist Dr Peter Grindrod, who is helping plan the European ExoMars rover landing on Mars for 2019, asked the Ordnance Survey to create the map, according to the BBC. And Wesson is hopeful that it will actually be used.
"It is a nice thought, that one day people could pinpoint the landscape around them from a map just as in the British countryside but the map may be quite different by then," he said in the statement.
Also on HuffPost:
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. (http://start.westnet.ca/newstempch.php?article=terms.html/) It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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But if you do ever end up visiting Mars (http://start.westnet.ca/newstempch.php?article=2015/05/18/live-on-mars-video_n_7019644.html), rest assured you'll have an easy-to-read map (https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/about/news/2016/os-maps-out-of-this-world.html) to help find your way around.
Britain's Ordnance Survey mapping agency used open NASA data to document the terrain on the fourth planet from the Sun.
It posted a map to Flickr Friday that covers 3.8 million square miles (https://www.flickr.com/photos/osmapping/), about 7 percent of Mars' surface.
The map shows the Western Arabia Terra region at a scale of 1 to 4 million. The landing sites of the Mars Pathfinder (http://mars.nasa.gov/programmissions/missions/past/pathfinder/) in northwest Ares Vallis and the Opportunity rover (http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/home/), east of Margaritifer Terra, are both featured.
Agency cartographer Chris Wesson spent several months deconstructing the data and creating the map (http://www.sciencealert.com/britain-s-official-mapping-agency-makes-a-handy-map-to-help-get-around-mars).
"It was a little hard at first (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35579849) to actually understand the data itself in terms of things like the elevation and the scale and so on," he told the BBC.
"But actually the physical process was almost identical to what was used to make an Earth map, or any OS map."
Asked why the map of the planet wasn't more red, Wesson revealed on the agency blog that it was too dominant a color (https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/blog/2016/02/21157/?awc=2495_1455559215_0822bc952e72d37815914a0e56547 ce3).
"Using shades of just one color makes it harder to see and picture the landscape and all the features within it from a map," he said.
Scientist Dr Peter Grindrod, who is helping plan the European ExoMars rover landing on Mars for 2019, asked the Ordnance Survey to create the map, according to the BBC. And Wesson is hopeful that it will actually be used.
"It is a nice thought, that one day people could pinpoint the landscape around them from a map just as in the British countryside but the map may be quite different by then," he said in the statement.
Also on HuffPost:
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. (http://start.westnet.ca/newstempch.php?article=terms.html/) It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/247391696674/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4d9f3892/sc/28/rc/1/rc.img (http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/247391696674/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4d9f3892/sc/28/rc/1/rc.htm)
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More... (http://feeds.huffingtonpost.com/c/35496/f/677045/s/4d9f3892/sc/28/l/0L0Shuffingtonpost0N0C20A160C0A20C160Cmars0Emap0Eo rdnance0Esurvey0In0I92417320Bhtml/story01.htm)