ArcGIS Earth is Here and It's Free

 Early 2015, Google Earth Pro was released for Free download ( see here) and we were excited... now ArcGIS Earth is here, hope it will double our excitement.

 

ESRI has released The first version of ArcGIS Earth is now available to download and its Free.  ArcGIS Earth is a lightweight, easy-to-use 64-bit Windows desktop app that enables anyone in your organization to easily view and explore 2D and 3D data including KML and ArcGIS services.

ArcGIS Earth enables us to view and explore GIS data formats like KML/KMZ and Shapefile; and ArcGIS web services (Map Service, Scene Service, Feature Service, Image Service).

ArcGIS supports the OGC KML standard (KML 2.2.0). As such, Earth takes particular care of Network Links type elements or the Screen Image Overlays or Ground Image Overlays..

To share your ArcGIS 3D views from Earth, you can use the image export tool, the sending via email tool or printing tool.

ArcGIS Earth allows exploration, navigation and querying your data in a 3D environment but also provides other capabilities like the graphics drawing.

ArcGIS Earth comes with essential tools for Measure, create placemarks and simple geometry, and more.

ArcGIS Earth is free and requires no subscription to ArcGIS Online or other ArcGIS licenses.

It is fully integrated with the ArcGIS platform so you can securely access, share, and publish your enterprise maps and data.

In that case, if you have an account on the portal of your ArcGIS organization (ArcGIS Online or Portal for ArcGIS), you can access to your content and those of your team in a secure environment. 

Download ArcGIS Earth Here

Culled from monde-geospatial.com

Say Cheese: The Earth and the Moon Pictured from Saturn

Nasa has released photos of the Earth and Moon taken by a spacecraft orbiting Saturn - nearly a billion miles away.

Our planet and its only satellite appear only as dots in the picture, which was taken by the Cassini spacecraft on 19 July.

Scientists wanted to pay homage to the "Pale Blue Dot" image captured by the Voyager 1 probe in 1990.

This was the first time people knew in advance that their long distance picture was being taken.

As part of the event launched by Nasa, people were asked to wave in what Carolyn Porco, who leads Cassini's camera team, described as an "interplanetary cosmic photo session".

"It thrills me no end that people all over the world took a break from their normal activities to go outside and celebrate the interplanetary salute between robot and maker that these images represent," said Dr Porco, from the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

The wide-angle image is part of a larger mosaic - or multi-image portrait - that imaging scientists are putting together of the entire Saturn system.

Pictures of Earth from the outer Solar System are rare because, from that distance, Earth is very close to the bright Sun.

Just as a person can damage their retina by looking directly at the Sun, a camera's sensitive detectors can be damaged by the bright rays.

These images were taken when the sun had moved behind the planet Saturn from the spacecraft's point of view, blocking out most of the light.

Hazards posed by Space Junks and Possible Solutions

Once in space, the biggest threat to astronauts and spacecrafts is space debris. Space debris, also known as space junk or space waste, are potentially dangerous and useless objects in Earth’s orbit. These objects are either man-made (such as spent stages of rockets, broken off pieces of spaceships or equipment, old unusable satellites, and even small flecks of paint) or natural (such as space rocks, ice, and dust). The problem with space debris is how hazardous they can be if they impact a spacecraft or even a spacewalking astronaut.