Sky & Telescope's Earth Globe

The editors of Sky & Telescope based this unique 12-inch globe of our home planet on NASA satellite imagery and other data. Sky & Telescope's art department combined two separate datasets: one showing Earth's landmasses very close to their natural color and the other depicting the fascinating topography hidden underwater. After we combined the land and water data sets into a single flat map, we next needed to convert that map into projections that could be wrapped around a 3-dimensional globe. Cartographer Michael Zeiler of Eclipse-Maps.com created these projections using ArcGIS software by Esri. The result is a globe that shows all of Earth's major geographical features, both on land and under the waves. We purposefully limited the labels to major geographical features to preserve the globe's natural beauty, and to give a sense of what Earth looks like from outer space.

The better we know Earth, the better equipped we are to understand alien worlds within our solar system and beyond. Utilizing a mosaic of incredibly high-resolution NASA images, our Earth globe goes beyond showing stunning geologic details on its seven continents. Included are the submarine features hidden by Earth’s oceans. This stunning combination then foregoes ephemeral political boundaries to highlight our home’s most spectacular natural features, such as the Himalayan Mountains and the Marianas Trench. So when you cup the Earth globe in your hands, the dearth of labels makes it feel that you’re actually holding our stunning planet.

Did You Know?
Prior to the 1960s, geophysicists had little knowledge about the geology of the ocean floor. Only then did they realize that seafloor spreading, combined with collision zones between huge slabs of oceanic and continental crust, led to the realization that plate tectonism is the dominant geologic process on Earth — and that its unique to our planet. 

 What Sky & Telescope's Monica Young has to say:

"'Root down to rise up.' The saying, though it comes from yoga class, applies just as well to planetary exploration - the better we know Earth, the better equipped we are to understand alien worlds, within our solar system and without. A mosaic of incredibly high-resolution NASA images, the Earth globe foregoes ephemeral political boundaries to highlight our home's most spectacular natural features, such as the Himalayan Mountains and the Marianas Trench."

ISBN 13: 9781940038698