NASA's 'Earth Now' app now available for Android

(Phys.org)—One of the top iPhone education apps in the iTunes store is now available for Android. The free NASA "Earth Now" Android app immerses cyber explorers in dazzling visualizations of near-real-time global climate data from NASA's fleet of Earth science satellites, bringing a world of ever-changing climate data to users' fingertips.

Available at www.jpl.nasa.gov/apps , Earth Now displays data on many of the key vital signs of our planet that NASA satellites track. The data, displayed on your smart phone in 3-D, include current surface temperature, carbon dioxide levels and global sea level.

The regularly updated data are displayed as color maps projected over a 3-D Earth model that can be rotated by a single finger stroke, or zoomed in and out by the pinch or spread of two fingers. Color-coded legends indicate the relative strength or weakness of environmental conditions. Descriptions provide background information on each data set.

"Android users now have a new resource for accessing up-to-date information on Earth's changing climate," said Michael Greene, manager, public engagement strategy at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Since its debut in February 2012, the iPhone version of Earth Now has been downloaded nearly 250,000 times. Additional NASA Earth science data sets will be added in the future."