This is just way cool. NASA has created a visualization application, ‘Eyes on the Solar System‘, that allows you to use your home computer to see where all of its spacecraft are in the Solar System. Not only that, but programmers have created a module within the software to follow the Curiosity mission as the rover approaches Mars. You can follow the entry, descent and landing in real time, and you can also take the driver’s seat to fast-forward (and backward) in time. Doug Ellison, the content lead for the application at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, says that everything is modelled as precisely as possible — even the trajectories for the ballast weights that are shed as the spacecraft descends. Here’s a shot of Curiosity against the backdrop of the mysterious Mount Sharp, just after it is released from the parachute and back shell.

NASA/JPL-Caltech