Google Maps now allows users to explore planets and moons

Screen grab from Google Maps

Google Maps has certainly turned once seemingly inaccessible places possible for the human eye, with its state-of-the-art web-mapping system.

Now, the serviceable application can also be used to take a peak at Earth’s planetary neighbors.

A recent update, as per The Verge, now provides access to over a dozen distant planets and moons.

Through the use of multiple spacecrafts including the Cassini probe, users can now zoom out of Earth and venture into Mercury, Venus, Pluto, the International Space Station, as well as multiple icy moons that orbit distant planets.

“During its mission, Cassini recorded and sent nearly half a million pictures back to Earth, allowing scientists to reconstruct these distant worlds in unprecedented detail,” Google announced the new feature through a blog post.

Furthermore, users can now re-create the journeys of Cassini and other spacecrafts while seated in front a computer.

Currently, the feature is undergoing improvements, as some netizens pointed out that some of the moons appeared to have mislabeled craters and features.  Khristian Ibarrola /ra

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