Google Maps Now Offers Tours Of The Moon And Mars, With A Few More Surprises

Google Maps has undoubtedly helped millions find locations around the globe. With Street View, the California-based company added eye-level imagery that enables us to get intimately familiar with the region. However, Google clearly wasn’t satisfied with offering detailed view of our world. Hence Google Maps, in association with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), now offers breathtaking up-close imagery of our moon as well as Mars.

Getting to the moon or Mars might now be easier than ever before. One need not wait or save up for Elon Musk’s SpaceX program that aims to send humans to Mars by 2026. Google Maps now features detailed mapping of the moon and Mars thanks to the planetary exploratory bodies sent to these celestial objects by NASA.

How does one go to the moon or Mars via Google Maps? Google is quite famous for keeping many of its exciting features hidden or a lot less obvious. To go to the moon or Mars, you will have to go to Google Maps and select Google Earth. After waiting for the map to load in 3D, start zooming out furiously, making sure the Explorer tab is open.

Once you have successfully zoomed out faster than a speeding bullet (just kidding), the moon and Mars should appear at the bottom of your screen. Clicking on any one of the tiny thumbnail will take you to the respective celestial object for an extensive virtual tour. Armchair space explorers can explore the terrain just as they would in Earth mode. Google has been kind enough to even offer an annotated version of the map, complete with Apollo missions, reported SFist.

The detailed maps of both the moon and Mars allow you to zoom in and out to view various areas that have always fascinated NASA and its engineers. You can even spin them around and choose your exploration point. The maps also include labels for many topographical features.

If space isn’t to your liking, Google Maps has few more surprises in store for you. You can get a peek inside the Doctor’s futuristic time machine and spacecraft called TARDIS from Doctor Who, reported Tech Times. Simply click on this link and then click on the iconic blue police box. Google Maps’ Earth view even allows you to locate all of America’s missile silo sites, and you can also find Nemo the clown-fish from Pixar’s animated movie Finding Nemo by inserting the coordinates 48 52.6?S 123 23.6?W in Earth view.

[Image Credit | Google Maps]