NASA Worldview. Satellite images of the earth in real time

Last updated on 3 December 2013

NASA Worldview is a TICE discovery site that offers Earth images taken from NASA satellites in real time …

… or almost. In reality there is a small gap of three hours between the moment the images were taken and their availability on the site. It is not very far from real time or the earth seen from the sky live. Several services, such as Google Earth for example, offer satellite images of our planet, but none of them make it possible to have a snapshot of the planet at any given time.

Even stronger, NASA WorldView offers you to go back in time. You will be able to choose from a kind of frieze of time an image taken on any day since May 2012. You can easily navigate with a small cursor placed at the base of the proposed satellite image. The site also offers a range of filters and image options to refine the view of the planet. The borders of each country may or may not be shown, or water zones may be highlighted, etc.

NASA Wordview allows like most services of this type of zoom in on a part of the globe. We will regret that the level of detail is not famous as soon as we get a little too close to the ground. On the other hand, the site offers an interesting option by allowing take a snapshot of a geographical area. All you need to do is zoom in on the area you are interested in. Then, by clicking on the ‘camera’ icon, you can draw a square on the area you want to photograph. Then all you have to do is upload the image to your computer.

NASA WorldView is of course free. It can be used as a support for courses or exercises in science or geography.

Link: NASA Worldview