Sometimes, when Google has one of those seasonal logos I click on it - to see what it’s about. Just now I noticed that the Google logo has a red planet with some little aliens representing the first “O” in Google. Out of curiosity I clicked on it, the image links to Google Mars, which is like Google Maps. Unfortunately it can’t be used with Google Earth client.
The blurb claims these are some of the most detailed maps of Mars ever made. I don’t know if the maps cover the whole planet, as admittedly my Martian geography is pretty poor.
Just for the fun of it I tried moon.google.com and it resolves. Go take a look and make sure to zoom in 
The rest of the planets don’t resolve. You can aslo get to Google Mars via mars.google.com.
Hey Tel, if you zoom out of the mars.google.com coloured relief map, you realise that Mars has an infinitely large repeating surface.
Comment by Sacha — March 15, 2006 @ 6:40 pm
Sach, are you trying to tell me Mars is a torus or something?
Comment by Tel — March 16, 2006 @ 1:35 am
*laugh* Those security codes are getting harder and harder to read.
Yes, at first I thought that Mars was a torus, but I realised it was more complicated as the North and South edges weren’t identified. The North and South poles have been decompactified (the opposite of stereoscopic compactification) onto the top and bottom horizontal lines on the map and the left and right edges have been identified. So it’s still topologically a sphere. Unless it is actually infinitely long and repeating with a finite width. Where are the martian dragons ready to eat the intrepid explorers?
Comment by Sacha — March 19, 2006 @ 7:47 pm
There was a Star Trek episode some years back about a torus-shaped planet on which all events occurred much faster than in the rest of the universe. I just wonder how a torus shaped planet could retain it’s torusness?
Comment by Sacha — March 19, 2006 @ 7:50 pm
That Distant Suns program looks very nice - I want to get it!
Comment by Sacha — April 2, 2006 @ 8:08 pm