Holy shit! If you’ve ever wanted to experience what it looks like to stand on the surface of Mars, Curiosity has made that a reality. Using images sent back from the Mars surface, Andrew Bodrov has made a 360 degree panorama of Mars.
Using the gyroscope in your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, this page works as a visual portal to Mars. Move your device up and the view move up. Move it to the left — the view moves to the left. The best part is that it moves incredibly fluidly. I tested it on my iPad (3rd Gen), and I didn’t notice any stuttering at all. Right from Safari, we can see a beautiful 360 degree world that reacts to our movements. This is unbelievably cool. If I would have seen this as a ten year old, I don’t think I would have been able to put it down for hours. Hell, I can hardly believe it as I type.
If you don’t have access to an iOS device, it should still work fine in any modern browser. Just click and drag the camera around, and it’s almost as good, but you won’t have the same sense of wonder. There is something about moving your device to change the viewport that makes it seem more real and visceral.
So, is this cool or what? Did you spend a couple minutes browsing around what else is available on 360 Cities? Let us know what you found by leaving a comment below this post with your email address, Twitter account, or Facebook account. We love hearing from you.
