Marble

Marble is a powerful virtual globe and world map.

For a short introduction into Marble you might want to have a look at the slides of our presentation about Marble at Akademy / GCDS 2009.

There's also a YouTube-video of the first 10 minutes available. The full video can be downloaded here.

Features

You can pan and zoom around and you can look up places and roads
A mouse click on a place label will provide the respective Wikipedia article
You can measure distances between locations
It offers different thematic maps: A classroom-style topographic map, a satellite view, street map, earth at night and temperature and precipitation maps. All maps include a custom map key, so it can also be used as an educational tool for use in class-rooms
For educational purposes you can also change date and time and watch how the starry sky and the twilight zone on the map change
Supports multiple projections: Choose between a Flat Map ("Plate carré"), Mercator or the Globe
Promotes the usage of free maps