Weather

Science on a Sphere comes to you!

Posted Updated
SOS Explorer Example
By
Mike Moss
Some of you may remember an earlier post of mine, or a story by Brian Shrader, about the installation of "Science on a Sphere" at Imagination Station last year in Wilson.

While it can't compare to the sensation of seeing the multitude of datasets projected onto a nearly 6-foot diameter sphere suspended in a darkened room, you can now experience a close second at home or in the classroom with the just-released Science on a Sphere Explorer.

It is a program that you can load onto a PC or Mac, and then manipulate a 3-D view of the earth with the same kinds of weather, geological, environmental, geographical and astronomical visualizations, some with interactive displays, that are used on the spheres in museums around the world. Articles about the new program do alert us that it is a big download (it'll require around 15 GB on your hard drive), so if you're interested do make sure there's plenty of space on your system.

I've included links here to a brief news article about the program, which includes several still and animated examples of the kinds of data you can display with it, and to NOAA's "SOS Explorer" home page, where there's more info and a link to download and install the program.

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