NASA World Wind

World Wind is a free[1] open source virtual globe developed by NASA and the open sourcecommunity for use on personal computers running Microsoft Windows. The program overlays NASA and USGS satellite imagery, aerial photography, topographic maps and publicly availableGIS data on 3D models of the Earth and other planets. World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there.  Wind was released for the first time in 2004 by NASA. The latest version (1.4) developed mainly by open source community members from World Wind Central/Free Earth Foundation had its premiere on February 14, 2007. Apart from the Earth there are several worlds in World Wind: Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter (with the fourGalilean moons of Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto) and SDSS (imagery of stars and galactics). All these worlds are available in the File menu. Virtually visit any place in the world. Look across the Andes, into the Grand Canyon, over the Alps, or along the African Sahara. http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/