Sphere two poles is called the axis of rotation. Circles on the sphere that are parallel to the equator are lines of latitude. This terminology is also used for such approximately spheroidal astronomical bodies as the planet Earth (see geoid). Any plane that includes the center of a sphere divides it into two equal hemispheres. Any two intersecting planes that include the center of a sphere subdivide the sphere into four lunes or biangles, the vertices of which all coincide with the antipodal points lying on the line of intersection of the planes. The antipodal quotient of the sphere is the
Science On a Sphere runs on Linux. SOS was invented by Alexander E. MacDonald, the former director of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, CO, and OAR Deputy Assistant Administrator for the NOAA Research Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes. MacDonald devised the original idea for Science On a Sphere in 1995 as part of other data visualization work he oversaw in what was the former NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory. A small but highly motivated and inventive team of NOAA staff led by chief designer David Himes wrote the SOS software and developed the SOS hardware and system architecture.