You might be wondering where the "world" or globe that you see when you first start ArcGIS Explorer comes from. It's actually one of many globes that you can choose to open that are part of ArcGIS Online. ArcGIS Online is a new family (in fact it's still in beta) of online content and other services hosted by ESRI. These are free for ArcGIS Desktop users, which includes ArcGIS Explorer. ArcGIS Online also publishes 2D and 3D basemaps for ArcMap, ArcGlobe, and ArcReader. You can find other ArcGIS Online globes at the ArcGIS Explorer Resource Center. To navigate there, click Help and choose the Resource Center, or click File > Open and then choose OK.

To learn more about each globe, click its name. You'll see a short description, and for more details you can click the link at the top of the description to navigate to the ArcGIS Online site where each is described in more detail. For more information, you can visit the ArcGIS Online product site.