Google is now showing you maps of the Mars. This feels just like Google Maps for earth, or the previous Google Moon*. You can switch between three different map types; elevation, visible**, and infrared. A list of "links of interest" (like where spacecrafts landed), as well as named mountains, canyons, dunes and craters is also available.
Google in their Mars FAQ says they're working on a version of this Mars data to be used in Google Earth (desktop) clients.
The Google Mars map is also linked from a special Google logo today (we know those little cyan aliens from the Google Mars logo of January 2004).
*Google Moon was only a half-serious project though (try zooming in as close as you can to see why).
**As to why this visible map is in gray-scale, not color, Google replies: "In true color, Mars pretty much looks like butterscotch. We chose a gray-scale map in order to highlight more surface details."
As the Googlist notes, Google Mars may only be the beginning of a coming "Google Galaxy." Back in 2005, Google registered the following domains for Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, Pluto and so on (always with .com, .org, .net and .info):
And then there's this JavaScript on Google.com which Josue R. snooped around in – and found the following strange piece of code (showing different locations from where the map data was or is coming from):
// Where does the data come from? // var mapsServer="conspiracy.mars.asu.edu"; // var mapsServer="dhcp-172-24-105-125.corp.google.com"; var mapsServer="kh.google.com/movl?ov=";
[Thanks Manoj Nahar, Wang Y., Garett Rogers, Search-Engines-Web.com, and Reto Meier.]
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