Spirit, NASA’s new Mars probe, is sending pictures back from the Red Planet to Earth. And you can view them on your Mac, thanks to a scientific visualization tool made by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) called Maestro. Apple has all the details in a new article.
It’s the same software that NASA scientists to plan the rover’s activities, according to JPL technical staff member Gene Chalfant. New image data will be provided to the public weekly.
Maestro utilizes 3D data sent back from the probe to help users visualize the Spirit rover’s surroundings. The probe is on a mission to find evidence that water once existed on the Martian surface — scientists are analyzing geology and trying to find clues in rocks and soil.
Maestro requires a PowerPC running at 500MHz or faster, 256MB RAM, 500MB hard disk space, and 3D graphics. You’ll also need Mac OS X v10.3.1 or later and Java3D and JavaAI Advanced Imaging extensions.
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