What's the ball of light in HBO's Game of Thrones intro?

THe HBO intro to Game of Thrones starts with a ball of light encircled by several bands. Then it soars across a map of Westeros. Then in the middle of the intro is the ball of light again. Some more moving across the map, dwelling in this place or that. Then again, the ball of light encircled by bands at the end of the intro.

I recognize most of the imagery as being related to the story. But I still haven't figured out the ball of light encircled by bands. Is that related to the story somehow?

Answer

Angus Wall, Creative Director at Elastic (the company that created the intro) describes it as an "Astrolabe":

It was by and large the same people that I've worked with before, which is nice. They were very, very supportive of what we were doing. One of the things that came out of our conversations were the bands on the astrolabe — they’re the bands that surround the sun. We show three close-ups of those bands that tell the pre-history of the world in relief-sculpture form. They tell about dragons attacking Westeros. They tell about how the different houses on Westeros got together and defeated those dragons, and how those houses, represented by their respective animals, bowed in allegiance to the Baretheon stag.

You can view a concept picture here:

Astrolabe Concept

and the "final render" here:

Astrolabe Final

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