A few years ago, Google gave people the ability to freely explore objects in space — but that experience was mostly locked up in Google Earth, the company’s 3D-mapping software.
This week, however, the company announced that far-out destinations can now be summoned directly in web browsers through a new feature of Google Maps called “Planets.”
Fortunately the name is a misnomer, since there are also moons, dwarf planets, and even the International Space Station to explore.
There’s no search box within “Planets,” so it’s difficult to, say, find the Apollo mission landing sites on Earth’s moon. The maps also restrict the degree to which you can both rotate and zoom in on a world, especially at the poles.
Regardless, it’s fun to play with — and bound to give you a new perspective on the solar system.
Here are six new outer-space destinations in Google Maps we recommend checking out.
Google Maps starts you out inside the Cupola module, a multi-pane window that looks down on Earth. Make sure to spin around and click Node 3: the home of NASA's famous Waste and Hygiene Compartment (a toilet).
The device collects astronaut urine, sweat, and breath, then recycles 93% of it into fresh drinking water.
Striping is seen on many of the worlds in Google Maps because it layers the highest-resolution imagery available from NASA, ESA, and other sources over lower-resolution images.
Peppered with volcanoes, deep canyons, and robotic probes, the red planet is easily the most fun to explore in Google Maps.
This ice ball that orbits Saturn looks unassuming, but it is one of the most exciting destinations in the solar system right now.
This dwarf planet is the largest object in the Asteroid Belt (though you've probably never heard of it), and an exciting destination for NASA's Dawn mission.
Until July 2015, no one knew what Pluto actually looked like. But the New Horizons mission changed all of that with a high-speed flyby -- and discovered the distant, icy world even has an ocean hiding below its surface.
On the opposite side of the world is a big, fuzzy patch -- and an exciting new space mission waiting to happen.
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