World Wind : Open source 3D interactive world viewer

What is World Wind?

World Wind, an open source 3D interactive world viewer, was created by NASA's Learning Technologies project, and released in mid-2004. It is now developed by NASA staff and open source community developers.
At its simplest you can think of World Wind as a desk globe, however World Wind is not a simple desk globe.

World Wind allows any user to zoom from outer space into any place on Earth. World Wind uses satellite imagery and elevation data to allow users to experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if they were really there. Virtually visit anyplace in the world. Look across the Andes, into the Grand Canyon, over the Alps or along the African Sahara.

Unlike your desk globe World Wind can display thousands of place names all over the world, from country capitals to villages in sparsely populated regions. You can see country borders, and in some cases intra country borders such as US states.

World Wind can also be expanded to include additional imagery and data.. There have already been a number of add-ons created, from Norway's Prehistoric Hillforts to additional planets, for more information on using add-ons see the Add-on Launchpad.

There are instructions on how to download and documentation and tutorials and much more on the site. There is also a forum : http://forum.worldwindcentral.com/

Above you can have fun with this implementation in Java.