Beyond Earth: Using Google Earth to Visualize Other Planetary Bodies

Virtual globes have revolutionized the way we visualize and understand the Earth, but there are other planetary bodies that can be visualized as well. We will demonstrate the use of Google Earth, KML, and other modern mapping tools for visualizing data that's literally out of this world. Extra-terrestrial virtual globes are poised to revolutionize planetary science, bring an exciting new dimension to science education, and allow users to explore the increasingly breathtaking imagery being sent back to Earth by modern planetary science satellites. We will demonstrate several uses of the latest Google Earth and KML features to visualize planetary data. Global maps of planetary bodies---not just visible imagery maps, but also terrain maps, infra-red maps, minerological maps, and more---can be overlaid on the Google Earth globe using KML, and a number of sources are already making many such maps available. Coverage maps show the polygons that have been imaged by various satellite sensors, with links to the imagery and science data. High-resolution regionated ground overlays allow you to explore the most breathtaking imagery at full resolution, in its geological context, just as we have become accustomed to doing with Earth imagery. Panoramas from landed missions to the Moon and Mars can even be embedded, giving users a first-hand experience of other worlds. We will take you on a guided tour of how these features can best be used to visualize places other than the Earth, and provide pointers to KML from many sources---ourselves and others---that users can build on in constructing their own KML content of other planetary bodies. Using this paradigm for sharing geospatial data will not only enable planetary scientists to more easily build and share data within the scientific community, but will also provide an easy platform for public outreach and education efforts, and will easily allow anyone to layer geospatial information on top of planetary data.