Earth isn’t in her best state in Starfield. Without an atmosphere, our home has been reduced to an endless desert. It’s shocking to behold. Only a few signs of humanity’s illustrious past remain, broken ruins poking out of the endless sands. And for some reason, at each of these somber sites sits a single commemorative snow globe for you to collect. Cheery! (There are two snow globes to collect on the moon and on Mars, too.)
Finding Earth’s former landmarks, and thus their snow globes, takes some doing. All but one snow globe has an associated book you’ll have to find first, which will give you the necessary coordinates. Then all you need to do is trek to Earth, land at the designated site, and take in the sights (and keep an eye out for the snow globes).
However, because some of these books are seemingly only found during parts of specific quests, progressing certain questlines can render some snow globes unobtainable. Specifically, the ideal snow globe hunter candidate is someone who hasn’t really gotten very far in the Crimson Fleet faction quest or the First Contact quest, and who hasn’t yet completed the main quest “Unearthed.” Also, if you’re on a New Game+ playthrough and choose to skip the main quest, you may not be able to get all of the snow globes that run, as some are in quest-specific areas.
In addition, discovering the locations of the landmarks will sometimes involve a bit of stealth and thievery, so be sure to invest at least one point into the Stealth and Pickpocket skills before you start your stellar sightseeing.
Lastly, it may be possible to find books for various snow globe landmarks in locations different from what we document here, but the following are all confirmed locations.
U.S. Bank Tower, Los Angeles, California, Earth
Let’s start with a monument to capitalism in whatever’s left of LA. To find the iconic U.S. Bank Tower (or, if you want some trippy headcanon, maybe it’s GTA’s Maze Tower?) head to Hopetown on the planet Polvo in the Valo system. Go to Ron Hope’s office and steal the book titled Hope Family Tree from his desk. This does in fact count as stealing, so use some stealth unless you want to cause a scene.
Flipping through its pages will give you the Earth coords for Los Angeles. Land, find the tower—you can’t miss it: Earth’s a giant desert now—and you’ll find the LA snow globe near the bottom of the bank tower.
The Gateway Arch, Saint Louis, Missouri, Earth
Let’s head east to Missouri and check out the big bendy swoopy thing the locals loved so much. Thankfully the Gateway Arch survived the destruction of the Earth’s atmosphere. To find out how to get there, you’ll need to steal a penthouse key at Neon’s Astral Lounge on the planet of Volii Alpha in the Volii system.
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Saunter into the Astral Lounge and take the elevator on the left to go to the VIP area. You’lll find Benjamin Bayu in one of the private booths. Pickpocket his penthouse key and leave the Astral Lounge. Before you get to the stairs that lead up to the lounge’s entrance, go to the left to find an elevator. Take that elevator to Bayu’s penthouse. Once inside, find his office and you’ll see a book on the desk titled The Price of Destiny. Read it and you’ll get the location for St. Louis and its famous arch.
The Empire State Building, New York, Earth
It’s time to hit up New York City, which remains the center of the world even in its barren state. This time you’re looking for a book called Our Lost Heritage. You can find it in the MAST building in New Atlantis on Jemison in the Alpha Centauri system.
Head to the president’s office via the MAST building’s ground floor lobby elevator and steal that book straight from her desk. Read it to get the location of the Empire State Building. Sadly, you won’t be able to peruse the halls of The Compleat Strategist, but you can find a snow globe just hanging out on a rock in the area surrounding the building.
The Shard, London, Earth
Let’s go to London (this time I won’t harangue the McDonald’s employee over what exactly brown sauce is). This one’s rather straightforward: Go to Akila City on Akila in the Cheyenne system and buy a copy of Oliver Twist from Sinclair’s Books. (If you find one of its many copies elsewhere, that’s fine too.) Read it and you’ll get a landing site on Earth.
Now head to Earth’s new London landing site to check out the Shard. Don’t forget to search the surrounding area for the snow globe!
The Pyramids, Cairo, Earth
What’s left of the pyramids after the Earth dies? Let’s go check them out. Back at Sinclair’s Books in Akila City grab a copy of Ancient Civilization of Egypt. Give it a read and then voyage to Cairo on Earth to check out the sights. Grab the snow globe on your way out.
Burj Khalifa, Dubai, Earth
It’s very easy to get locked out of finding Dubai’s epic tower if you finished the “Siren of the Stars” quest in the Crimson Fleet scenario and didn’t loot the book Race to the Heavens in room five on the cruiser Siren of the Stars.
Once you read that, you’ll get the Dubai location and can check out this incredibly tall building, snagging the Dubai snow globe nearby.
International Commerce Center, Hong Kong, Earth
To locate Hong Kong, you’ll need to go to New Homestead on Titan in the Sol System and recover Maurice Lyon’s journal. Enter New Homestead. Head down the stairs into the museum and make an immediate left before you pass the Starsap Tours booth. You’ll find a series of shelves with a red book. Read the book and you’ll get the Hong Kong location added to your map.
Shanghai Tower, Shanghai, Earth
The Shanghai Tower can be found by reading Essentials of Modern Macroeconomics in the classroom on the starship ECS Constant. You can find this ship initially orbiting Paradiso on the planet Porrima II in the Porrima system.
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You may or may not have access to it, however, depending on the outcome of the “First Contact” quest. It’s best to grab the book before starting “First Contact.”
Abeno Harukas, Osaka, Earth
First find the Diary of Kyosuke Nagata on The Key starstation in the Kryx System. You’ll find it in Delgado’s room on a nightstand next to his bed.
You’ll gain access to the Key as a part of the Crimson Fleet faction quest. Depending on the outcome of that questline and how far along you are, however, you may or may not be able to grab this book.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Earth
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is an odd Earth location as, right now, it seems like there isn’t a specific book that can help you find it. Instead, you’ll have to brush up on your geography to try and guess where it would be on Earth’s surface.
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To get started, first find the London landmark following the directions above. Then, look southeast from London on Earth’s map, just beyond the first mountain range tucked into a corner. That’s where you need to move your ship to. I was able to find the tower with this location:
Head to the highest vantage point you can find in your landing area and look for anything that resembles a tower. It may take a try or two to click just the right landing spot. Frustratingly, the tower won’t show up on your scanner, unlike other points of interest.
If you’re playing on PC there’s another way to find it. If you just want to get taken to the Tower automatically, bring up the console (via the tilde key) and enter this command:
cow 0018E4B4 0 0
You should warp to near the Tower of Pisa.
Note that using console commands will disable achievements on your save file. Luckily, you can avoid this fate by installing an achievement-protection add-on beforehand. For the Steam game we like Baka Achievement Enabler (SFSE), but if you’re running the Windows Store / Game Pass version you can try plain old Achievement Enabler. Get one of those running and you’ll be safe to use the console command without achievement repercussions.
However you reach the Tower, you’ll find the snow globe at its base.
Apollo moon-landing site, Luna
To unlock the Apollo moon-landing site, you’ll need to find Sir Livingstone’s Second Journal. This is located in The Lodge in Matteo’s room. Now just travel to Luna in the Sol system—the celestial object we Earthers typically call “the moon”—to find the landing site and the related snow globe.
Mars Opportunity Rover, Mars
To find NASA’s now-ancient Mars Opportunity Rover, you’ll have to have progressed in the main questline up until the “Unearthed” quest, which sends you to a specific location on Earth, a long-abandoned NASA building.
As part of this quest, you’ll find a decaying museum-style exhibit dedicated to early space-exploration efforts in the NASA facility. Read the stand for the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) and you’ll get a quest to head back to Mars to find the rover and the related snow globe.
The Face of Mars, Mars
In 1976, the Viking orbiters captured an image of the Martian surface that included a certain mountain that, under specific lighting conditions, happens to look like a face. You can also find a snow globe of it in Starfield.
When walking outside of the Cydonia settlement, head southeast to a large hill (it’s a bit of a hike). As you cross the apex of the hill and begin heading downward, look out for areas with patches of dark ground and you should find the snow globe in one of them.
NASA Globes
The very same NASA facility that “Unearthed” takes you to is also home to five NASA-themed snow globes. You’ll find number one by climbing to the very top of the exterior launch tower, like, the very, very top. Also stop on the fifth floor where, inside a locker, you’ll find a second NASA-themed snow globe. This same floor also contains a third snow globe sitting on an office desk just a short distance from the locker. OK, that’s it for this tower.
Inside the NASA facility’s museum area (which is inaccessible after completing “Unearthed”), you’ll want to keep a lookout for the final two globes. For the first, simply follow the quest markers until you get to an area mostly bathed in red light. On a row of seats sits the NASA-themed snow globe. Continue a bit further and you’ll come across a “Secure Access” door that needs power to open; the final snow globe will be on a desk just ahead of where you need to reactivate the power.
That wraps our list of all landmarks and snow globes for Starfield. However, it is entirely possible (given the unmarked location of the Leaning Tower of Pisa) that there could be yet more undiscovered landmarks on Earth. We’ll update this guide should we come across any others.
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