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Virtual moon and Mars flights come to Google
Bringing Nasa down to Earth

By Gemma Simpson

Published: Tuesday 19 December 2006

Want to take a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars? Google and Nasa have teamed up to put the space agency's cosmic data online.

The Nasa Ames research centre and Google have signed an agreement that could soon allow internet users to check on the red planet's weather, investigate the moon's craters or track the International Space Station (ISS).

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The internet titan and space agency are also finalising details for additional collaborations, including research, products or space missions. Recently they met to discuss the many challenging computer science problems facing both organisations and possible joint efforts that could help address them.

A spokesman from the European Space Agency (ESA) - which also has many high resolution images of Mars and the moon and is hoping to send astronauts to Mars by 2030 - said the deal is a great way to promote space exploration but added the new Google Mars and moon services will be of more interest to science enthusiasts and are not likely to hold the broad public appeal of Google Earth.

Google has already produced interactive maps of the moon and Mars by combining their own software with Nasa's images.

Google Earth also used images from the ESA's satellites last month to showcase natural disasters.