The Satellite Imaging Series
In 2002, NASA released an extensive set of satellite-captured imagery, including prepared images suitable for direct human viewing, as well as complete sets suitable for use in preparing further works. At the time, 1 km/pixel was the most detailed imagery available for free, and permitted for reuse without a need for extensive preparatory work to eliminate cloud cover and conceal missing data, or to parse specialized data formats. The data also included a similarly manually assembled cloud-cover and night-lights image sets, at lower resolutions.
A subsequent release was made in 2005, named Blue Marble Next Generation, produced with the aid of automated image-sifting, which enabled the inclusion of a complete, cloud-free globe 'frozen in time' for each month of the year, at even higher resolution (500m/pixel). The original release of a single-image set covering the entire globe had, of necessity, not been a true reflection of the extent of seasonal snow-and-vegetative cover across both hemispheres, but this newer release closely modeled the changes of the seasons.
A number of interactive viewers for these data has also been released, among them a music visualization for the PS3 that is based on the texture data.
Read more about this topic: The Blue Marble
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