World Wind is a cool app from NASA

I was doing some map research/surfing and found World Wind – a very cool open source app from NASA. World Wind stitches together tons of NASA Earth imagery and satellite data from multiple sources:

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.

The app has gotten plenty of press over the years in Wired and tome on the geo spatial web (from Springer). Its like a Google Earth but for super geeks and researchers. Warning: this app could suck many hours out your day – but in a good way.