A crisply rendered web application can show you where the agency’s Mars 2020 mission is right now as it makes its way to the Red Planet for a February 18, 2021, landing.
The last time we saw NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission was on July 30, 2020, as it disappeared into the black of deep space on a trajectory for Mars. But with NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System, you can follow in real time as humanity’s most sophisticated rover — and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter traveling with it — treks millions of miles over the next six months to Jezero Crater.
“Eyes on the Solar System visualizes the same trajectory data that the navigation team uses to plot Perseverance’s course to Mars,” said Fernando Abilleira, the Mars 2020 mission design and navigation manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “If you want to follow along with us on our journey, that’s the place to be.”
Give the Mars 2020 Perseverance spacecraft a spin. Fully interactive, Eyes on the Solar System doesn’t just let you track it in real time as it travels to the Red Planet. Dozens of controls on pop-up menus allow you to customize not just what you see — from faraway to right “on board.” Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Eyes doesn’t just let you see the distance between the Red Planet and the spacecraft at this very moment. You can also fly formation with Mars 2020 or check the relative velocity between Mars and Earth or, say, the dwarf planet Pluto.
“With all our orbital assets circling Mars as well as Curiosity and InSight on its surface, there is new data and imagery coming in all the time about the Red Planet,” said Jon Nelson, visualization technology and applications development supervisor at JPL. “Essentially, if you haven’t seen Mars lately through Eyes on the Solar System, you haven’t seen Mars.”
Dozens of controls on pop-up menus allow you to customize not just what you see — from faraway to right “on board” a spacecraft — but also how you see it: Choose the 3D mode, and all you need is a pair of red-cyan anaglyph glasses for a more immersive experience.
You don’t have to stop at Mars, either. You can travel throughout the solar system and even through time. The website not only uses real-time data and imagery from NASA‘s fleet of spacecraft, it’s also populated with NASA data going back to 1950 and projected to 2050. Location, motion, and appearance are based on predicted and reconstructed mission data.
While you’re exploring, take a deeper dive into our home planet with Eyes on the Earth and travel to distant worlds with Eyes on ExoPlanets.
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4 Comments
“Dozens of controls on pop-up menus ” … Where? I could not find a place where there was a menu. Have you actually used this “interactive” tool?
Because its fake. There is no outer space. It’s all CGI. It’s time to wake up out of your indoctrination and programming. Use common sense.
What part of common sense tells me that while no one was looking the government decided there was a political advantage to creating a screen above our heads that when observed perfectly matches up with expectations. CGI lmao. As if you even know how computer generated imagery works. Funny thing is that a lot of CGI simulations and images do exist. Besides that you could even argue that every digital image rendered from particular data is CGI such as the black hole video and you wouldn’t even be wrong. But that wouldn’t even begin to be a reason it’s not there and just clearly shows that you heard a term and latched on to it. Sounds a bit like you’re the one who’s been indoctrinated. Oops.
Ahem–Those non-believers and the ones who can’t think for themselves should
be aware that sober and clear-thinking NASA buffs are able to watch the upcoming
Mars event with positive amazement and glee. A rotary-bird on Mars is cosmic to the Nth degree, as is the land-locked explorer.
All the above events and machines are a prime example of USA guts and determination
and should be welcomed by all–great and small. All these events to be monitored from my easy-chair! Good luck NASA and God’s Be.