If youve been pining for images of another world, NASA has a website for you.

The latest high-resolution pictures of martian craters, valleys, rifts, volcanoes and myriad other landforms were snapped by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC), one of the instruments on board NASAs Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft currently orbiting the Red Planet. This marks the first time in history that such a huge number of planetary images has been released to the public at one time.

"We thought it would be neat to go online with all this stuff at the same time so everyone can see it because its really cool," said Ken Edgett, a scientist with Malin Space Science Systems, the company in charge of MOCs images.

Twice a year, Malin Space Science Systems is required by NASA to file the entire catalog of images taken by MOC during the previous six months. This latest batch -- all 25,000 images -- includes all photographs snapped between March 1999 and August 1999.

"The reason that there are over 25,000 images is because thats how many pictures we took during the first six months," said Edgett. "Every single image we took is out there for that period of time."

If 25,000 seems like a large number to you, youre not alone. Scientists too were thrilled by the huge quantity of pictures obtained of the martian surface, saying that their success was due in part to the favorable position of Mars Global Surveyor during the first six months of imaging.

The further Mars is from Earth, the slower the rate of data that can be transmitted between Mars Global Surveyor and mission scientists. "During 1999, the spacecraft was at a high data rate, so we were able to get a lot," Edgett explained. This year, Mars is further from Earth, so the data rate for images is lower; therefore, there will be fewer images to review at the end of this year. But in 2001, Mars will return to a favorable position for gathering data -- including possibly 25,000 more images.

Whats more, NASAs newest internet image gallery is allowing the public to make discoveries about our ruddy neighbor on their own. According to Edgett, if a person were to visit NASAs site and start browsing, they very well could stumble across an image never before viewed by human eyes. "I would argue that there are some images in there that no ones ever seen," he said. This is because although many of the latest Mars images have been pored over by scientists and imaging specialists, the sheer number obtained over such a short period of time was too large for them to thoroughly examine.

Mars Global Surveyor, along with its MOC, has been performing beautifully since the spacecraft reached Mars in September, 1997. It will continue to send data from our mysterious neighbor until at least 2001, when the spacecrafts current mission ends and officials at NASA and contractor Lockheed Martin must decide whether to extend its tour of duty.

Planetary scientists have learned a great deal about the history of Mars formation, climate and surface features from MOC images and other Global Surveyor data. With the immense amount of scientific data that Global Surveyor has sent back to Earth thus far, many scientists think that the spacecraft will continue its work for at least another year beyond its primary mission. "My impression is that [Global Surveyor] could last three, four or five more years," said Edgett. "I think we could certainly get a couple more years out of it, and that would be great."