Papercraft Mars Topographic Globe

The landing of NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars this month got me hankering to build a Mars papercraft. Here's my favorite model: a papercraft Mars topographic globe by Eotvos Lorand University Cosmic Materials Space Research Group in Budapest. There's lots to like about this model. First, it is available in a high resolution template that clearly shows the surface features of Mars. Second, there is extensive labeling of the surface features. Finally, the resting places of the first ten landers to make it to the surface of Mars are pinpointed, from the Soviet Mars 2 lander (1971) to NASA's Phoenix lander (2008). The blue tag in the image above is the location of the Spirit rover (2004) (Though not labeled, Curiosity's location is at the far left of the globe just below the equator). The template for the Mars globe was intended to be printed and wrapped around a sphere, but if you have decent papercrafting skills the creation of a hollow papercraft globe should be an easy task. The JPG globe gore template may be downloaded here.