Now we will look at another virtual globe - free program Marble.

Marble is a virtual (electronic) globe. Thanks to this globe, you can learn much more, both about your planet and about many planets of the solar system. For example, about Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and their satellites.

The maps are designed in various styles, from road maps to climate, topographic, temperature, night lights maps. Also, it is possible to view maps from different historical periods. This applies not only to the Earth, but also to the Moon and Mars. For example, this is what the Atlas of Proposed Canals of Mars, compiled by Percival Lowell in 1895, looks like.

Or, the earth's globe of 1492. I've only seen maps like this on a flat scale. Pay attention to the North Pole. Here we see a continent similar to ancient Hyperborea.

You can also look at a map of the Moon, for example, from 1645, compiled by Johannes Hevelius. As can be seen from the screenshot, on the map we see many lunar craters and lunar “seas”. A sickle-shaped place is hidden from the eyes of earthlings dark side The moon, which was photographed only in the middle of the 20th century by a Soviet satellite.

Marble how to use the program

Marble version 2.2.0 can be download from official site for 32 and 64 bit Windows systems. Also, the program is great for Max OS X and Linux (this program is best suited for Linux). But, I would advise you to first download Marble Rus version 1.4.1. This version has fewer features, but it is in Russian. Accordingly, it will be easier to work with it.

Subsequently, when you get used to the program menu, you can update or download new version. Unfortunately, it will already be in English. If you find a new Russian version, I will be grateful if you paste its link in the comments.

So, let's install Marble. We have a shortcut in the form of a compass. Let's launch our software. Then, pay attention to the left menu. Select map, Earth and in “Design” OpenStreetMap. Then, with the mouse we zoom in on the desired settlement. For example, this is what one of the districts of Volgodonsk will look like.

You can plot your route on the map. To do this, in the “Route” menu, select point A, then B. Place them on the map. Choose Car, Pedestrian or Bicycle. Click “Get route”.

We mark the route with a blue line. Unfortunately, sometimes the program slows down. In this case, it is recommended to install a newer version.

You can enable uploading of user photos (available in a newer version).

Vintage maps of the Earth, Moon and Mars

This is one of the most interesting moments. You can see what maps looked like starting from the end of the 15th century. So, let's see what cards are available to us in the program menu. To do this, select “Design” in the left column. Next, I will open the Earth globe at 1570. It can be rotated, brought closer or further away.

An incomprehensible continent is again shown in the Arctic Ocean (Hyperborea?). Antarctica looks huge and is connected to Australia.

Not all types of maps are presented in the supplied program. To view others, select “file”, “download data”.

We find ourselves on a website page where various maps of both the Earth and other planets for different periods are presented. Download the ones you need.

Then, unzip the files and install them in the installed Marble folder. Namely, in the maps folder.

Moreover, we insert maps of the Earth separately into the earth folder, the moon into moon, Mars into mars (those who know English will figure it out quickly) and other planets also separately. You can see how beautiful the lights of the night earth look from space.

Or what Eurasia looks like according to climate zones. For example, it becomes clear that almost all of Scandinavia, Karelia and Siberia are located in the Arctic polar zone, and St. Petersburg is located next to it.

I advise you to take a closer look at the other planets in this virtual globe. You can believe me, they look very beautiful! Good luck!

The earth is an exact copy of the globe (joke)

Our Earth is one of eight planets in the composition solar system. The Earth moves at a speed of 107,159 kilometers per hour around the Sun. At the same time, it rotates like a top around its own axis at a speed of 1,670 kilometers per hour (speed at the equator). The journey from Earth to space will pass through a layer of nitrogen and oxygen approximately 1,600 kilometers thick. This layer of air is called the atmosphere. Thanks to the atmosphere and gravity, we do not feel the rotation of the Earth.
The Earth receives temperature and light from the Sun. Light travels at a speed of 300,000 kilometers per second. The Earth is approximately 150 million kilometers from the Sun; so the beam of light travels through space for about 8 minutes before reaching Earth.
The globe represents our Earth in miniature. Because the globe has three dimensions, like the Earth, it displays true sizes, shapes, distances, and directions. Maps and atlases, because they are flat and have only two dimensions, show the Earth with distortions. It is impossible to represent a round object on a plane without distortion.
Some globes (relief) show raised surfaces (which represent mountains) and indentations (sea depressions). There is an element of distortion here. We must understand that the highest mountain on Earth (Everest, height 8,840 meters) should be like a grain of very fine sand on a globe 30 centimeters in diameter, the deepest depression in the ocean (11,022 meters, Mariana Trench) should be shown as a dent equal to the thickness of tissue paper.
For good understanding geography and astronomy, for a more intellectual understanding of news received from other parts of the planet - nothing can compare with the globe in terms of relevance. The globe should be in every home, every school classroom and every library.

Shape and size of the Earth

The globe is a perfectly round ball, but the Earth itself is slightly flattened at the poles. The technical term for the shape of the Earth is geoid. The following diagram shows the differences in some of the Earth's measurements. These differences show that the Earth is not a perfect sphere:

The total surface area of ​​the globe is 510,072,000 square kilometers. The proportion of land surface is about 30% (148,940,000 square kilometers). Approximately 70% of this area (361,132,000 square kilometers) is covered by water.

To observe the Earth's surface for free and view satellite images online, you can use several applications. In Russia, two of them are most popular: Google Maps and Yandex Maps. Both services boast good quality satellite images high resolution most countries.

Yandex maps - online application from Russian developers, therefore, the cities of Russia are more accurately described in it. It has built-in functionality for viewing traffic load data (large settlements), demographic and geodata. Google maps have equally high-quality satellite images of the territory of the Russian Federation, but data on land plots and traffic are available only for the United States.

View a map of Planet Earth from satellite online

Below you can see the Google map built into the site. For more stable operation of the plugin, we recommend using the Google Chrome browser. If you see an error message, please update the specified plugin and then reload the page.

Watch Google Earth from satellite, in real time online:

Another advantage of Google Maps is the presence of a client application for working with satellite images. This means that the service can be accessed not only through a browser, but also through a pre-downloaded program. It has many more opportunities for viewing and studying satellite images and working with a three-dimensional virtual globe.

3D satellite map from Google (downloadable app, not online version) allows:

• use a quick search for the desired objects by name or coordinates;
• take screenshots and record high quality videos;
• work offline (preliminary synchronization via the Internet is required);
• use a flight simulator for more convenient movement between objects;
• save “favorite places” for fast travel between them;
• view not only the Earth's surface, but also images of other celestial bodies (Mars, Moon, etc.).

Work with satellite Google maps You can do it through a client application or browser. A plugin is available on the official page of the program that allows you to use interactive map on any web resource. It is enough to embed its address in the site’s program code. For display, you can select either the entire surface or a specific area (you will have to enter the coordinates). Control - using a computer mouse and keyboard (ctrl+mouse wheel for zooming, cursor for moving) or using the icons indicated on the map (“plus” - zoom in, “minus” - zoom out, move with the cursor).

The Google Earth service in real time allows you to work with several types of maps, each of which reflects certain data on satellite images. It’s convenient to switch between them “without losing progress” (the program remembers where you “were”). Available viewing modes:

• landscape map from satellite (geographical objects, features of the Earth's surface);
• physical map(detailed satellite images of the surface, cities, streets, their names);
• schematic geographical map for a more accurate study of surface images.

The satellite image is automatically loaded at the point of approach, so a stable Internet connection is required for operation. For work Google Planet Earth in offline mode you need to download an application for Windows or another operating system. Its operation also requires the Internet, but only for the first launch, after which the program synchronizes all the necessary data (satellite images of the surface, 3D models of buildings, names of geographical and other objects) after which it will be possible to work with the received data without direct access to the Internet.

All my life these two objects go side by side, and they always surprise me with their dissimilarity. On the one hand, both are just a reduced version, and on the other hand, they represent a whole layer in the history of development.

True, you also need to be careful here. After all, standard globes are thirty or even eighty million times smaller than a real planet, so the area covered by a finger can include several islands or even countries.

So if you seriously decide to find out where it’s best to go, then you should use a globe made for the Paris Exhibition of 1889. It is only slightly smaller than the globe. Like a million times. You can't go wrong here.

Of course, it appeared much later than cards, but managed to gain its share of popularity. Being first made in 1492, it managed to be useful both for navigation and for school teaching aid, although recently it has been used much more often as a benefit.

It should be noted that the name Globe did not appear by chance, although the one who came up with it was not distinguished by wild imagination. Globe is translated from Latin as ball. Yes, just a ball - succinct and understandable.

Only one question remains unresolved. If you take a globe and a map with the same thing and stick the map on the globe, will the mountains and rivers match? Curious? Well then you can try it. Although it is better to ask the teacher first.

According to the stories of astronauts, there is no more beautiful and bewitching picture than the view of the Earth from space. When you look at a small ball consisting of white clouds, brown earth and blue water, it is impossible to take your eyes off...

Today we will look at several cool online 3D Earth globes, which you can use directly from this page. They are all interactive and you can interact with them. No need to download and install additional programs like Google Earth etc. – just open this page in your browser and enjoy.

Photorealistic 3D Earth globe

This is a three-dimensional model of the world, on which photo textures obtained by NASSA satellites are stretched.

You can spin the ball in different sides while holding down the left mouse button. Rotating the mouse wheel up increases the viewing scale, downwards - on the contrary, decreases it.

At maximum zoom, the textures become blurry, so I recommend that you do not get too carried away with scaling.

Blurring is due to the fact that the model uses low-resolution photographs. Otherwise, loading them in the browser would take too long.

This 3D globe allows you to see our planet almost the way astronauts see it. Well, or close to it :)

Virtual globe of the Earth

This 3D model of the world does not have raster textures, like the previous one, but vector ones, so here scaling can be done down to individual buildings. At maximum magnification there are even house numbers and street names.

Historical globe

It demonstrates how our ancestors saw our Earth at the end of the 18th century. Its authorship belongs to the famous geographer and cartographer Giovanni Maria Cassini, and it was published in Rome in 1790.

It is also fully interactive, you can twist, rotate, zoom in or out of the map. Looking at it, you understand how much the world has changed in just 200 years, and how many events were behind it all...

And here is the actual globe itself (1790), from which this online 3d model was made:

Finally amazing beautiful video about what the Earth actually looks like from space:

Friends, share your impressions, opinions and ask questions in the comments!