See the moon in 3D
p2p news / p2pnet: Want to see the moon in 3D? Well, you can, says NASA.
Using the NASA ‘World Wind’ computer program originally designed to show aerial views of the Earth, surfers can zoom in from a global view to closer pictures of the Moon as seen from the Clementine spacecraft in the 1990s.
“We have just digested the best of the Clementine images, so we can now deliver the moon at 66 feet (20 meters) of resolution,” said Patrick Hogan, manager of the World Wind Project Office at NASA Ames. “This is a first. No one has ever explored our moon in the 3-D interactive environment that World Wind creates.”
Launched in early 1994, Clementine took 1.8 million pictures of the lunar surface during a two-month orbit of the moon.
The PC-compatible World Wind program is available free here.
(Thanks, Masha)
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See:-
NASA – NASA Internet Software Zooms to moon Images in 3-D, Ocrtober 26, 2005
November 3rd, 2005 at 2:19 pm
I wonder if someone would have to download a special program to do this. Given the fact that NASA is a huge government agency that works on technology is a good reason for it not to be trusted running unknow code on people’s computers. If one cannot trust Sony which is a mega corporation, how can one trust NASA which is a mega government organization. It is a well know fact that the government wants more spy powers. If a program is required, I would only install it if I can inspect the source code.
November 3rd, 2005 at 2:22 pm
there’s a link in the article for the program download.
November 3rd, 2005 at 8:04 pm
You’re an ID10T!
November 4th, 2005 at 1:11 am
I don’t think the original poster is a comlpete idiot. Maybe overly paranoid perhaps, but it certainly does pay to be watchful these days as Sony and others has proven recently. For WorldWind to work properly, all kinds of internet access must be given, and that requires trust on the users part.
It’s a cool program. The last time I used it which was about a year ago. Not sure if it’s closed source or open though. It has been around for a while though, and I’m sure if there was a problem with it someone would have raised an alram by now. Besides, it’s not like someone giving away free stuff is abnormal these days, like it used to be not so long ago. Not without some sort of catch attached to it anyways. I suppose the only truly prudent advice that can be given is ‘use at your own risk’, and that applies to everything and always has.
November 4th, 2005 at 6:46 pm
Dispite what another poster said, I am not an idiot. However I should have checked the link given in the article. The program in question is actually open source. This fact gives the program quite a bit more credibility, but I do not trust it completely.
I still stand by my statement about executing unknown code from any untrusted source. I do not consider a person, company, or government trustworthy or credible simply based on the fact that they have control over a lot of resources. Look at the recent example with Sony. Trust has to be earned as far as I am concerned. Before I run the code, I am going to inspect the source as well as compile the program from the inspected source.
There is another fallacy when it comes to the safety of executables Just because the source is available for inspection does not mean that the precompiled executable does not contain something extra. This used to be a comon trick among some people that I was aquainted with. The Internet-connected computer that I trust to be secure enough to store confidential data on is one I have at my home. This computer runs a modified (by me) Linux system on which code was added to each individual package to make it immune to exploits written and distributed to the masses. In this day and age, I do not trust something just because al the experts say it’s secure. The “experts” have been proven wrong time and time again.
Read the article below, and you will see some of my points.
http://www.ranum.com/security/computer%5Fsecurity/editorials/dumb/index.html