NASA World Wind

NASA World Wind,  is an Open Source virtual globe developed by NASA for use on personal computers running Microsoft Windows. The program overlays NASA satellite imagery and United States Geological Survey aerial photography on a 3D model of the Earth, Moon and Mars. (Venus and Jupiter are also available in the File menu, as well as the four Galilean moons of Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto). Microsoft has allowed World Wind to incorporate Virtual Earth data for non-commercial use. Users interact with the selected planet by rotating it, and zooming in and out. Five million placenames, political boundaries, latitude/longitude, and other location criteria are included. World Wind provides the ability to browse maps and other imagery on the internet using the Open Geospatial Consortium Web Map Service, import ESRI shapefiles and placemarks from kml/kmz files. This is an example of how World Wind allows anyone to deliver their imagery. The benefit that gold prospectors get from using World Wind is you can get topo maps, aerials, LandSat data all in one easy to use location. Plus it provides real time GPS tracking and you can upload all USGS Mine (MAS/MILS) data through the KML/KMZ import feature. Research made easy - for free.