Our image web pages all have this great map feature (click the image to the right for an example). (It’s been there for a while, so you may have noticed it already.) If you scroll down to the bottom, below the Observation Toolbox, you’ll see a mini context map from Google maps for the specific image whose page you’re viewing. It’s so useful to be able to see the HiRISE footprints placed on a broader view of Mars, showing the surrounding geology. Plus, you can pan and zoom around in the map. Way cool.
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Mars Global Surveyor’s Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) has for the past several years sent back a wealth of images of Mars. Until Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrived with the HiRISE camera, the MOC images were the highest resolution images of Mars from orbit. Here is a comparison of the same region on Mars taken from HiRISE Observation TRA_000823_1720 (left) and MOC image ID E2100030 (right). Technological progress allows us to continue sending more and more powerful cameras to gaze down on Mars. The MOC and HiRISE data sets have and will revolutionize our understanding of geological processes on Mars.