Picture a relief map of the world. Click your mouse over the continent of Asia, and suddenly your computer screen is filled with a satellite photograph of the Tibetan plateau. Click again and you zoom in for a closer view of the Himalayas. Bring up the control panel, and you're looking at a political map of the same region. These are just a few of the bells and whistles on Small Blue Planet, the first CD-ROM "atlas" I've seen that's worthy of the name. Until NASA's Earth Orbiting Satellites come online with real-time pictures of the blue planet (see "Mission to Planet Earth," WIRED 1.6, page 94), this has to be the next best hit. The political map, updated to January 1, 1993, could use more detail; most countries appear simply as regions, with few, if any, cities mentioned. But the controls are easy to learn and use, and the product is well designed and a great showcase for the capabilities of the medium.
Ditto for Redshift, a mind-blower CD-ROM developed by Russian scientists. Redshift will give you a satellite or virtual picture of the Earth, Moon, and planets from anywhere on the map. You can track Earth as it moves through space, orbit around Venus, or see Jupiter from any of its moons. You can pick your point in space, choose any date between 4700 BC and 11000 AD, and witness the astronomical event of your choosing - whether it's the position of the planets at the exact moment of your birth or what the heavens will look like at the stroke of midnight New Year's Eve, 1999.
I've played with Redshift for hours and never felt like I came near touching bottom. Unlike Small Blue Planet, the control panels and menus are not easily grasped in one sitting, but when you consider that Redshift lets you view 200,000 stars, 40,000 deep space objects (including 5,011 asteroids and 88 constellations), then lets you make QuickTime movies of the views you created, who's complaining? If you're into astronomy and don't own a CD-ROM, Redshift is all the excuse you need to get one.
- Jim Metzner
Small Blue Planet: The Real Picture Atlas, for Mac and Windows: US$79.95. Now What Software: (800) 322 1954.
Redshift: Multimedia Astronomy, for Mac: US$99.95. Maxis: +1 (510) 254 9700, (800) 336 0185.
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