Windows on Earth is a museum exhibit,

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

, and exploration tool, developed by TERC, Inc. (an educational non-profit organization, previously called Technical Education Research Centers), and the

Association of Space Explorers Association may refer to: *Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal *Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry *Voluntary associatio ...

, that enables the public to explore an interactive, virtual view of Earth from space. In addition, the tool has been selected by NASA to help astronauts identify targets for photography from the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

(ISS). The program simulates the view of Earth as seen from a window aboard the ISS, in high-resolution, photographically accurate colors and 3D animations. The views include cloud cover, day and night cycles, night time lights, and other features that help make the exhibit realistic and interactive.

Earth Visualization Software

Windows on Earth provides the user a view of Earth from an astronaut's viewpoint, with interactive photorealistic views of Earth as if seen from an altitude of 360 km. The program use
GeoFusion's
digital Earth visualization system, which renders accurate views of Earth with terrain, satellite imagery, clouds, and other layers. The system is programmed for user interaction, allowing users to "fly" anywhere they wish to see, and zoom in or out to see details. The system's imagery is derived from

Landsat The Landsat program is the longest-running enterprise for acquisition of satellite imagery of Earth. It is a joint NASA / USGS program. On 23 July 1972, the Earth Resources Technology Satellite was launched. This was eventually renamed to Lan ...

, and features 3D perspective views. Former astronaut

Jay Apt Jerome "Jay" Apt III (born April 28, 1949) is an American astronaut and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Before becoming an astronaut, Apt was a physicist who worked on the Pioneer Venus 1978 space probe project, and used visible light an ...

assisted with the color-correction of the images, to help get the most realistic colors as seen from space. The program is updated daily to include accurate cloud cover information.

Development and Outreach Partners

Windows on Earth was created by people from the Center for Earth and Space Science Education (CESSE) at TERC, a not-for profit math and science education company located in Cambridge, MA, in partnership with the

GeoFusion's
an
WorldSat International
and with funding from the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

, Informal Science Education. Additional partners include the

Challenger Learning Center Challenger Center for Space Science Education is a United States 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capita ...

and

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Johnson Space Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight in Houston, Texas (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight controller, flight control are conducted. ...

Museums

The Windows on Earth museum exhibit can be found in the Smithsonian

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States, dedicated to history of aviation, human flight and space exploration. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, ...

, Boston's

Museum of Science A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers ...

, the Montshire Museum of Science in Vermont, the

St. Louis Science Center The Saint Louis Science Center, founded as a planetarium in 1963, is a collection of buildings including a science museum and planetarium in St. Louis, Missouri, on the southeastern corner of Forest Park. With over 750 exhibits in a complex of o ...

, and the Connecticut Science Center.

Garriott Mission

Windows on Earth flew on board the

(ISS). On October 12, 2008,

Richard Garriott Richard Allen Garriott de Cayeux (''né'' Garriott; born 4 July 1961) is a British-born American video game developer, entrepreneur and private astronaut. Garriott, who is the son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, was originally a game designer ...

launched aboard

Soyuz TMA-13 Soyuz TMA-13 (, ''Union TMA-13'') was a Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The spacecraft was launched by a Soyuz-FG rocket at 07:01 GMT on 12 October 2008. It undocked at 02:55 GMT on 8 April 2009, performed a deorbit burn ...

to the ISS as a

Spaceflight participant Spaceflight participant () is the term used by NASA, Roscosmos, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for people who travel into space, but are not professional astronauts. While the term gained new prominence with the rise of space touris ...

. Garriott remained on board the station for 10 days, conducting educational and scientific programs and experiments. Earth observation was one of his prime tasks on this mission, and he used the Windows on Earth system to help him take pictures of specific targets. After the mission, Richard's photographs, along with ones taken by his astronaut father

Owen Garriott Owen Kay Garriott (November 22, 1930 – April 15, 2019) was an American electrical engineer and NASA astronaut, who spent 60 days aboard the Skylab space station in 1973 during the Skylab 3 mission, and 10 days aboard Spacelab-1 on a Spac ...

, who flew on

Skylab 3 Skylab 3 (also SL-3 and SLM-2) was the second crewed mission to the first American space station, Skylab. The mission began on July 28, 1973, with the launch of NASA astronauts Alan Bean, Owen Garriott, and Jack Lousma in the Apollo command ...

(1973) and

STS-9 STS-9 (also referred to Spacelab 1) was the ninth NASA Space Shuttle mission and the sixth mission of the Space Shuttle ''Columbia''. Launched on November 28, 1983, the ten-day mission carried the first Spacelab laboratory module into orbit. ...

(1983), were made available to the public through Windows on Earth. This provides a unique opportunity for comparing areas of Earth photographed by two generations of space explorers, showing how Earth's surface (and the technology of Earth observation) has changed over 35 years, from 1973 to 2008.

Tool for the ISS

In May 2012,

selected Windows on Earth as the new tool to help astronauts identify targets for photography from the ISS.

References

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External links

Windows on Earth

GeoFusion, Inc.
- Digital Earth visualization system
WorldSat International, Inc.
- Satellite imagery Satellite imagery American science websites Spaceflight