Maps: NASA Blue Marble, Black Marble, LRO, MESSENGER, Cassini, New Horizons · Mars: NASA/JPL/USGS Viking mosaic, relief from MGS MOLA (NASA/GSFC, 6x vertical exaggeration) · Jupiter: Hubble OPAL 2019, NASA, ESA, A. Simon (GSFC), M.H. Wong (UC Berkeley) (CC BY 4.0), enhanced colour · Sun's limb: NASA/SDO AIA 304 Å · Sun, Saturn, Saturn's rings, Uranus, Neptune, clouds, relief: Solar System Scope (CC BY 4.0) · Moons and small worlds: NASA/JPL/USGS; Io, Ganymede, Titan, Triton via CelestiaContent (CC BY, Askaniy Anpilogov et al.); Mimas, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Ceres, Vesta via Stellarium (CC BY 4.0, Oleg Pluton, FarGetaNik) · Bennu, Ryugu, Itokawa, Eros, Arrokoth: shape models NASA PDS / OSIRIS-REx / NEAR / New Horizons (CC0), Ryugu ISAS/JAXA (CC BY 4.0); maps via CelestiaContent (Askaniy Anpilogov, Roman Tkachenko; Stooke, NASA PDS; CC BY) · Positions of the Sun, Moon and planets: JPL DE440 ephemeris (Park et al. 2021, NASA/JPL), 1800-2100; moons: orbits fitted to JPL Horizons (satellite ephemerides JUP365, SAT441, URA184, NEP098, MAR099, PLU060); other orbits: JPL, Minor Planet Center; asteroids and comets: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database (via KStars) · Spacecraft trajectories: NASA/JPL Horizons · Rotation: IAU WGCCRE · Data: NASA NSSDC
Space Simulator
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Ancient Earth: the world for the last 540 million years
A globe of the Earth every 5 million years back to the Cambrian, from the PALEOMAP reconstructions: continents drifting apart and together, seas flooding and draining, ice coming and going. Search for your city or use your location to see where it was when the first dinosaurs walked on Pangaea.
What did Earth look like 200 million years ago?
Almost all land was joined in one supercontinent, Pangaea, which was just starting to split: the central Atlantic Ocean was opening, and the first dinosaurs were spreading across it.
How fast do the continents move?
A few centimetres a year, about as fast as fingernails grow. Over 100 million years that adds up to thousands of kilometres.
Where do these maps come from?
From the PALEOMAP project by Christopher Scotese: 109 paleo-elevation maps (Scotese & Wright 2018), one every 5 million years for 540 million years, and the PALEOMAP plate model, which carries today's places back with their plates.
Will the continents join again?
Very likely. Models of plate motion predict a new supercontinent in roughly 200 to 250 million years.