Earth Visualization Animations

Northern and Southern Lights

For many years, it's been commonly believed that the Northern Lights (aurora borealis) and their southern counterparts (aurora australis) were mirror images of each other, occurring simultaneously thousands of miles apart. But only now has this been clearly demonstrated, by scientists at NASA and the University of Iowa using the POLAR satellite: the QuickTime movie here shows the northern and southern lights pulsing and moving simultaneously. Caution: The Quicktime movie is large, about 2.4 Mbyte. A smaller animated GIF (326 kbyte) is also available.

Source: POLAR mission, Image ID: 2001_295_small_rle_99f.mov

Seasonal Changes on Earth

This 857K MPEG animation is intended to convey a sense of the cyclic nature of the seasonal variations of vegetation, snow cover, and sea ice on the surface of Earth. The topography has been exaggerated by a factor of 50 for clarity. The GENESIS (Global ENvironmental and Ecological Simulation of Interactive Systems) Earth Systems Modeling Project used here is an effort to develop a comprehensive first-generation model of Earth's climate system for use in global change research.

Source: National Center for Atmospheric Research, Seasonal Dance Video Excerpt, Image ID: endsd.mpg

Earth as Seen by Galileo

This 1.8-MB Quicktime movie, also available in a more extended 2.8-MB MPEG version, shows Earth as seen by the Galileo spacecraft shortly after its launch. The rotation of Earth and the motion of cloud patterns on its surface are clearly visible.

Source: NASA JPL Solar System Visualization Project, Galileo Earth Rotation Movie Image ID: e3.mov, earth3.mpeg

Spinning Topographical Earth Map

This 540K MPEG animation shows the surface topography of Earth, both above and below the oceans. The images are computer generated from a digital database of oceanic bathymetry and land topography. The original data points were spaced every 5 minutes of latitude and longitude; the images used here were reduced in resolution while preserving important physiographic features.

Source: National Geophysical Data Center, Global Relief Data Movie, Image ID: spinningglobe.mpg