Invaders From Earth

Video: What It’s Like To Fly Over Mars

Take a flying tour of the red planet without leaving your cubicle.

Ever space out during Star Trek reruns and wonder what it’d really be like to get all Top Gun in space, zooming over the surface of, say, a planet like Mars? Well, now you can make those daydreams a reality, Captain, at least for around three minutes and 10 seconds.

Using computer animation based on images and research from the red planet’s awesomely named Atlantis Chaos region, you swoop among, as the European Space Agency (ESA) describes it, “rugged cliffs and impact craters, alongside parts of ancient shallow, eroded basins. See smooth plains scarred with wrinkled ridges, scarps and fracture lines that point to influence from tectonic activity.”

Thankfully, there is a lack of the X-Files drama, such as fossils—human or alien—or Illuminati structures that have made headlines this year as NASA’s Mars Rover beams back images from the ground. All conspiracy theories aside, pump up the SciFi theme song of your choice, click on HD, and make this thing full screen: It’s a damn cool ride.

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James Joiner

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