FROZEN: A Spherical Movie About the Cryosphere

Released on March 27, 2009, FROZEN is NASA's second major production for the Science On a Sphere platform, a novel cinema-in-the-round technology developed by the Space Agency's sibling NOAA. Viewers see the Earth suspended in darkness as if it were floating in space. Moving across the planet's face, viewers see the undulating wisps of clouds, the ephemeral sweep of fallen snow, the churning crash of shifting ice, and more.

FROZEN brings the Earth alive. Turning in space, the sphere becomes a portal onto a virtual planet, complete with churning, swirling depictions of huge natural forces moving below. FROZEN features the global cryosphere, those places on Earth where the temperature doesn't generally rise above water's freezing point. As one of the most directly observable climate gauges, the changing cryosphere serves as a proxy for larger themes.

But just as thrilling as this unusual—and unusually realistic—look at the planet's structure and behavior is the sheer fun and fascination of looking at a spherically shaped movie. FROZEN bends the rules of cinema, revealing new ways to tell exciting, valuable stories of all kinds. The movie may be FROZEN, but the experience itself rockets along.