Google Buckyball Logo - Another CSS Sprite Animation

I have found another CSS sprite animation on the web, the Google's buckyball logo for today, September 4, 2010.

Although it's a bit crappy cause makes my Firefox slow down, it gives me the idea that web developers really consider using this method to animate "images" although they are not just images.

This case is very complex that it makes me crazy thinking how they get the motivation on making around 50+ parts that moves around and making sure that the bond line (divs with background) and the bond point(img) would be perfectly bonded. However the browser would pay the performance price.

I have save a copy of it just in case you really want to see it in the future (since tomorrow it will be gone): View Google buckyball animation Although it's up to Google if they'll remove these files on there website.

Now I wonder, what's better? gif animation or canvass animation or flash animation or css sprite animation?

Note: I'm not really sure about the correct term for "css sprite animation"