NASA, Microsoft take Web surfers to Mars

NASA and Microsoft launched an interactive website on Tuesday that allows Web surfers to become Mars explorers.

The website is located at beamartian.jpl. nasa.gov.

The “Be a Martian” website invites members of the public to help scientists perform such research tasks as improving maps of the red planet, the US space agency and US software giant said.

“We’re at a point in history where everyone can be an explorer,” Doug McCuistion, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, said in a statement.

“With so much data coming back from Mars missions that are accessible by all, exploring Mars has become a shared human endeavor,” McCuistion said.

Users can, for example, count craters on Mars, a task NASA said had posed a challenge in the past because of the vast numbers involved.

The website hosts hundreds of thousands of pictures of Mars including many which have never been released to the public before.

It features a “virtual town hall” where users can have questions answered by Mars experts and offers prizes to software developers who create tools that provide access to Mars images for online, classroom and Mars mission team use.

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NASA, Microsoft take Web surfers to Mars

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