Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Mapping the Martian


In the novel 'The Martian' NASA astronaut Mark Watney is abandoned by the rest of his crew on Mars. In order to survive Watney has to drive a Mars rover 2,000 miles across the planet to Schiaparelli Crater where he has a chance of being picked up by another NASA mission.

Last year Andy Weir's The Martian Map was the first Google Map to track and plot a novel set on Mars. The map plots the course of Watney's journey to Schiaparelli Crater and marks the locations of some of the incidents he encounters along the way.

In anticipation of the release of 20th Century Fox's film of Andy Weir's novel Bing has now got in on the act. Bing Watney Home also allows you to track Watney’s journey on a map of Mars. The map is following Watney's journey in 'real time' and a new transmission is being added to the map every day, as Watney attempts to navigate his way to Schiaparelli Crater.

The orange map markers show the locations of Watney's transmissions. A countdown clock shows you how long you have to wait until the next transmission and the yellow dots on the map provide information on some of the points of interest along Watney's path across Mars.

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