NASA is unveiling a new edition of its popular Mars Trek web tool. The new edition adds features that take you on fictional astronaut Mark Watney’s daunting 2,000 mile (3,200 kilometer) journey of survival across the Red Planet. The release of Mars Trek 2.0 comes days after the Oct. 2 opening of 20th Century Fox’s movie, “The Martian,” based on the novel by Andy Weir. In the book and movie, Watney is marooned on Mars and forced on a lengthy journey with the hope of rescue. While the astronaut’s path is fictitious, it takes place on real areas of Mars. Watney’s trek takes him across a wide range of remarkable Martian terrain, from flat plains covered in deposits from Mars’ watery distant past, to rugged highlands preserving some of the most ancient land on the Red Planet. Mars Trek’s bookmark for "The Martian" allows you to follow Watney’s intended path from Acidalia Planitia to the large crater Schiaparelli. Waypoints along the route provide you with expert commentary from Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The bookmark’s 2D view provides an excellent overview of the path of Watney’s odyssey and critical points of interest along the way. The bookmark’s 3D view lets you fly along Watney’s path at user-selected speeds, stopping along the way and panning across the remarkable terrain. As you explore, you’ll gain a better understanding of this fascinating terrain, the forces that formed it, and NASA’s plans for continuing exploration in its journey to Mars. Mars Trek is one of NASA’s planetary mapping and modeling web portals. It makes it easy for mission planners, scientists, students and the public to visualize details on the surface of Mars, as seen with a variety of instruments aboard a number of spacecraft orbiting Mars.
