Mapping the Mars Rover

The New York Times has created an amazing interactive map and timeline of NASA's Mars Rover. The Mars Curiosity Rover Tracker visualizes the track of the Mars Rover on a satellite image map of Mars.

You can click on waypoints along the Rover's track to view photos captured by the Rover on its year and a half journey into the Gale Crater. The surface of Mars is an alien landscape, unknown to most of us, the map therefore includes a timeline showing the location of interesting stops on its journey.

If you select a day from the timeline or click on the waypoints on the map you can view some amazing photographs from the surface of Mars. Many of the images have been stitched together to create amazing panoramic shots of the Martian landscape or to create animations that help illustrate how the Rover navigates the Martian surface.