There’s a new high resolution Sheriff in town and they ain’t pussy footing around.

Anyone who hasn’t been in a cave for the past 6 years knows all about Google Earth. Now comes something that may be even cooler. It’s called HiRISE which stands for High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment.

In case you haven’t guessed yet, HiRISE does for Mars what Google has done for earth. Yes, I’m talking about close up ultra high resolution images of the red planet in such amazing detail, you’ll think you’re there.

The best news is that now anyone can go to the HiRISE website, download their program/application called HiVIEW, donate $200, peruse the image catalog and then just sit back and gaze at countless hi res kick butt photos from virtually any point on the entire planet. By the way, I lied about the $200, it really costs $1000. OK, it doesn’t cost anything! Now, that’s a darn good deal!

Here’s a short introduction to the application:

I can only imagine the explosion of pareidolia and other delusions of alien presence, not that there’s a lack of people seeing things on Mars now.

You may be wondering how they just happen to have all these unbelievable images? Well, The University of Arizona’s HiRISE camera has been taking Ultra high-resolution images from aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for years and they finally have enough to keep even the most avid Mars geek satisfied.

All you have to do is take a quick trip over to the HiRISE homepage and you’ll be up and running in no time flat and seeing images such as Valles Marineris, which is the largest canyon in the Solar System. Or maybe you’d like to see tracks left in the Martian soil by the Opportunity Rover.

Whatever it is that you desire to see on the red planet is at your disposal and in my opinion, this is just the tip of the stellar iceberg. We will soon be viewing other celestial bodies like this before you know it.

I for one think this takes a Google Earth type application to the next level of evolution and could help to open a whole new avenue of technology.

As we explore the universe, we are really still in our infancy but with advances such as this we can begin to really envision a quest to travel to and populate distant worlds.

I highly recommend that anyone reading this take advantage of HiRISE.

Note: Thanks to our own Valkyrie for finding this gem.