Your smartphone gives you a panoramic window onto Mars
by John Fisher,posted Aug 16 2012 10:15AM
This is cool. There's a camera mounted on a pole above the Curiosity Mars rover. This link lets you use your smartphone to see what that camera sees -- a 360 degree view of the planet Mars.
If you move the phone in any direction, it acts as a window, and the view moves with it. If you look down, you see the rocks and gravel of Mars. If you point the phone up, you see the small sun and the planet's sour sky. If you look to the horizon and tilt your phone, you see the rocks and dirt close to you move faster than the furthest points; it feels like you're standing there. Just try it, even if you have to borrow someone's phone.
Show it to your parents. Show it to your kids. If you're a teacher, start the first day of school by passing around your iPhone and saying, "This is why you're learning math."
It works on a desktop computer, too, but holding a phone or an iPad and using it as a virtual "window" to look up and down and left and right is really quite amazing.
Seriously. Clink this link on a smartphone or an iPad and behold.
Your smartphone gives you a panoramic window onto Mars
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08/16/2012 9:04AM
Image differences
I'm not sure why, but the version of the image embedded on this page is missing Mount Sharp, the 6km mountain at the center of the crater. If you follow the link and view the panorama on the 360 cities page, it's definitely in that version. Not sure why the two versions appear different. Show us the mountain! Mountain! : P
