[Video: https://youtu.be/SsZRXlKY-zk]

Good news: you don’t need to travel to Mars to see it with your own eyes! This sci-fi themed virtual observatory takes you 300 years forward in time, to the age of ubiquitous nanotechnology and virtual presence. You’ll be free to travel anywhere on the planet to study its landforms, from ground level up to orbit and beyond. More than 1700 locations are categorized according to feature type and area (cartographic quadrangle), and can be observed at any time of day. See the light of rising sun slowly fill the deep valleys of Coprates, and the magnificent shadows cast at sunset by Olympus Mons, the largest known volcano in our solar system.

If you are a player, try out the included 2-4 player strategy game with your friends (on the same device or online), or against the four AIs, each with unique playing style. One of them is even willing to teach you the game! Your playing field is all of Mars, for you to explore and conquer, establishing companies to exploit the resources of the claimed areas and trading on the stock of these companies. Global leaderboards await those who learn to master the game best.

To keep you company, there’s Ada: more or less abandoned orbital space station, who’d like to regain some of her lost magnitude - with your permission as her new owner, of course. She’s always ready for a good chat, but won’t mind if you rather talk with your friends (or anyone else) online through the integrated, geolocation-enabled chat interface.

There’s more to discover as you gain access and help Ada to rebuild herself. But that will be something for you to find out…

About hardware requirements: although Mars Observatory may work on your phone, it is designed primarily for tablet and desktop devices with respect to performance considerations and display size. This app will run on most devices with at least 4 GB of RAM (on lowers quality settings, when no other demanding apps are running at the same time), but 16 GB is recommended and even required for the highest quality setting. Best use experience is with at least medium quality setting, including e.g. volumetric fog & shadows, dust devils, anti-aliasing, and some space traffic.