The 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft’s THEMIS camera has acquired images of Mars for more than 16 years. Twenty-four thousand high-quality images have been compiled into a global mosaic and printed at full resolution on a walkable basketball court-size vinyl mat. The goal will be to display this giant map of Mars on the National Mall outside the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in order to spur interest and support for planetary science among policy makers and the general public. We will schedule the event for dates in spring 2019 when Congress is in session and also include a weekend so that a large number of visitors to the museum can explore the map. The desired outcome is that AGU and Arizona State University will be viewed as valuable, knowledgeable partners in both planetary science and in distributing the knowledge we gain from planetary missions to the public.
