These very high resolution images show a global view of the Earth at different orientations with Arctic sea ice on December 8,2008 and September 15, 2008. The extent of the sea ice was determined by the AMSR-E sea ice concentration data. The terrain shows the average land cover for the related months over the continents. (See <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/features/blue_marble.html">Blue Marble Next Generation</a>) The global cloud cover shown was obtained from the original Blue Marble cloud data distributed in 2002. (See <a href="http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=2432">Blue Marble:Clouds</a>) A matching star background is provided. Note: A star field with a transparent background o serve as a background for the above Earth image. Data Collected: 2008-12-08, 2008-09-15. Animator: Cindy Starr (GST). Platforms/Sensors/Data Sets: Aqua/AMSR-E/Daily L3 12.5km Tb, Sea Ice Concentration, and Snow Depth, TOPEX/Poseidon/Sea Surface Height, TRMM/PR and TMI/Monthly Average Precipitation, Hipparcos/Hipparcos Catalogue, Hipparcos/Tycho 2 Catalogue.