New observations from Europe's Goce gravity mapping satellite have allowed scientists to plot ocean currents with unprecedented precision.
Through them, we have the opportunity to, like our ancestors, become explorers when Google satellites have mapped every inch of our own world, leaving few places where we can truly explore the unseen.
Now, researchers using NASA's twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites have created a map of the two gravity anomalies and how they are changing over time.
Previous Earth monitoring satellites had mapped the extent of sea-ice coverage in the Arctic.
Several subsequent experiments to which Smoot made major contributions in instrumentation, including the recent Planck satellite, have refined maps of the CMB to the point that they now mark the first notch in a "cosmic ruler" used to measure the history of an expanding universe driven by dark energy.
"We acknowledge that it has been a long time, and this is a very innovative and interactive way to do it". Ian Schafer, the founder and chief executive of Deep Focus, said Google gave permission to use its satellite maps, which have detailed satellite imagery of the earth, without charge.
Since the 1990s, satellite maps have been used to calculate the height of snow and ice above the waterline, but experts have to make assumptions about the roughly five-sixths of mass underneath, and there is a "hole" in the data over the North Pole which is 1,600km across.
Sophisticated satellite mapping has made the task easier by identifying the location and extent of mangrove ecosystems now designated as protected forestland.
Satellite mapping has also been used to discover the continents' vast mineral reserves, and recently helped uncover an enormous underground water aquifer in Kenya's driest region.
NASA's Fermi Satellite has constructed the highest resolution, high-energy map of the Universe ever created.
