Google Earth
Encyclopedia
Google Earth is a virtual globe
, map
and geographical
information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc
, a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funded company acquired by Google
in 2004 (see In-Q-Tel
). It maps the Earth by the superimposition
of images obtained from satellite imagery
, aerial photography
and GIS
3D
globe. It was available under three different licenses, two currently: Google Earth, a free version with limited function; Google Earth Plus (discontinued), which included additional features; and Google Earth Pro ($399 per year), which is intended for commercial use.
The product, re-released as Google Earth in 2005, is currently available for use on personal computer
s running Windows 2000
and above, Mac OS X
10.3.9 and above, Linux kernel
: 2.6 or later (released on June 12, 2006), and FreeBSD
. Google Earth is also available as a browser
plugin which was released on May 28, 2008. It was also made available for mobile viewers on the iPhone OS on October 28, 2008, as a free download from the App Store, and is available to Android users as a free app on the Android Market
. In addition to releasing an updated Keyhole based client, Google also added the imagery from the Earth database to their web-based mapping software, Google Maps
. The release of Google Earth in June 2005 to the public caused a more than tenfold increase in media coverage on virtual globe
s between 2004 and 2005, driving public interest in geospatial
technologies and applications.
As of October 2011 Google Earth has been downloaded more than a billion times.
(see also bird's eye view
). The degree of resolution available is based somewhat on the points of interest and popularity, but most land (except for some islands) is covered in at least 15 meters of resolution. Melbourne
, Australia; Las Vegas, Nevada
; and Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
include examples of the highest resolution, at 15 cm (6 inches). Google Earth allows users to search for addresses for some countries, enter coordinates, or simply use the mouse to browse to a location.
For large parts of the surface of the Earth only 2D images are available, from almost vertical photography. Viewing this from an oblique angle, there is perspective in the sense that objects which are horizontally far away are seen smaller, like viewing a large photograph, not quite like a 3D view.
For other parts of the surface of the Earth 3D images of terrain and buildings are available. Google Earth uses digital elevation model
(DEM) data collected by NASA
's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
(SRTM). This means one can view the whole earth in three dimension
s. Since November 2006, the 3D views of many mountains, including Mount Everest, have been improved by the use of supplementary DEM data to fill the gaps in SRTM coverage.
Many people use the applications to add their own data, making them available through various sources, such as the Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) or blogs mentioned in the link section below. Google Earth is able to show all kinds of images overlaid on the surface of the earth and is also a Web Map Service
client. Google Earth supports managing three-dimensional Geospatial
data through Keyhole Markup Language
(KML).
Google Earth is simply based on 3D maps, it has the capability to show 3D buildings and structures (such as bridges), which consist of users' submissions using SketchUp
, a 3D modeling
program software. In prior versions of Google Earth (before Version 4), 3D buildings were limited to a few cities, and had poorer rendering with no textures. Many buildings and structures from around the world now have detailed 3D structures; including (but not limited to) those in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, India, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, Pakistan
and the cities, Amsterdam
and Alexandria
. In August 2007, Hamburg
became the first city entirely shown in 3D, including textures such as façades. The 'Westport3D' model was created by 3D imaging firm AM3TD using long-distance laser scanning technology and digital photography and is the first such model of an Irish town to be created. As it was developed initially to aid Local Government in carrying out their town planning functions it includes the highest resolution photo-realistic textures to be found anywhere in Google Earth. Three-dimensional renderings are available for certain buildings and structures around the world via Google's 3D Warehouse and other websites. Although there are many cities on Google Earth that are fully or partially 3D you can get more by going on to the Earth Gallery. The Earth Gallery is a library of modifications of Google Earth people have made. In the library there are more than just modifications for 3D buildings there are models of earth quakes using the Google Earth model, 3D forests, and much more.
Recently, Google added a feature that allows users to monitor traffic speeds at loops located every 200 yards in real-time. In version 4.3 released on April 15, 2008, Google Street View
was fully integrated into the program allowing the program to provide an on the street level view in many locations.
On January 32nd, 2010, the entirety of Google Earth's ocean floor imagery was updated to new images by SIO, NOAA, US Navy, NGA, and GEBCO. The new images have caused smaller islands, such as some atolls in the Maldives
, to be rendered invisible despite their shores being completely outlined.
and Panoramio
. In Wikipedia, entries are scraped
for coordinates via the . There is also a community-layer from the project Wikipedia-World. More coordinates are used, different types are in the display and different languages are supported than the built-in Wikipedia layer. Google announced on May 30, 2007 that it is acquiring Panoramio
. In March 2010, Google removed the "Geographic Web" layer. The "Panoramio" layer became part of the main layers and the "Wikipedia" layer was placed in the "More" layer.
and the Cirrus SR-22 were the only aircraft available, and they could be used with only a few airports. In addition to keyboard control, the simulator can be controlled with a mouse or joystick. Google Earth v5.1 and higher crashes when starting flight simulator with Saitek and other joysticks.
The user can also fly underwater.
The flight simulator can be commanded with the keyboard, mouse or plugged-in joystick. Broadband connection and a high speed computer provides a very realistic experience. The simulator also runs with animation, allowing objects (for example: planes]) to animate while on the simulator. Image overlays can also be added to make it look like the cockpit of a plane.
is a feature that was introduced in Google Earth 4.2 on August 22, 2007, and allows users to view star
s and other celestial bodies. It was produced by Google
through a partnership with the Space Telescope Science Institute
(STScI) in Baltimore, the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope
. Dr. Alberto Conti
and his co-developer Dr. Carol Christian
of STScI plan to add the public images from 2007, as well as color images of all of the archived data from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Newly released Hubble
pictures will be added to the Google Sky program as soon as they are issued. New features such as multi-wavelength data, positions of major satellites and their orbits as well as educational resources will be provided to the Google Earth community and also through Christian and Conti's website for Sky. Also visible on Sky mode are constellations, stars, galaxies and animations depicting the planets in their orbits. A real-time Google Sky mashup
of recent astronomical transients, using the VOEvent
protocol, is being provided by the VOEventNetcollaboration. Google's Earth maps are being updated each 5 minutes.
Google Sky faces competition from Microsoft WorldWide Telescope (which runs only under the Microsoft Windows
operating systems) and from Stellarium, a free open source planetarium that runs under Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X
, and Linux
.
On March 13, 2008, Google made a web-based version of Google Sky available via the internet.
into Google Earth. In version 6.0, the photo zooming function has been removed because it is incompatible with the new 'seamless' navigation.
Google Street View provides 360° panoramic street-level views and allows users to view parts of selected cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas at ground level. When it was launched on May 25, 2007 for Google Maps
, only five cities were included. It has since expanded to more than 40 U.S. cities, and includes the suburbs of many, and in some cases, other nearby cities. Recent updates have now implemented Street View in most of the major cities of Australia and New Zealand as well as parts of Canada, parts of South Africa, Denmark, Mexico, Japan, Norway, Finland, Spain, Sweden, France, the UK, Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Taiwan, and Singapore.
Google Street View, when operated, displays photos that were previously taken by a camera mounted on an automobile, and can be navigated by using the mouse to click on photograph icons displayed on the screen in the user's direction of travel. Using these devices, the photos can be viewed in different sizes, from any direction, and from a variety of angles.
beneath the waves. Supporting over 20 content layers, it contains information from leading scientists and oceanographers
. On April 14, 2009, Google added underwater terrain data for the Great Lakes
. In 2010, Google added underwater terrain data for Lake Baikal
.
In June 2011, higher resolution of some deep ocean floor areas increased in focus from 1-kilometer grids to 100 meters thanks to a new synthesis of seafloor topography released through Google Earth. The high resolution features were developed by oceanographers at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory from scientific data collected on research cruises. The sharper focus is available for about 5 percent of the oceans (an area larger than North America). Underwater scenery can be seen of the Hudson Canyon off New York City, the Wini Seamount near Hawaii, and the sharp-edged 10,000-foot-high Mendocino Ridge off the U.S Pacific Coast. There is a Google 2011 Seafloor Tour for those interested in viewing ocean deep terrain.
and it also includes 3D renderings of the Martian terrain. There are also some extremely high resolution images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
's HiRISE
camera that are of a similar resolution to those of the cities on Earth. Finally, there are many high resolution panoramic images from various Mars landers, such as the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit
and Opportunity
, that can be viewed in a similar way to Google Street View
. Interestingly enough, layers on Google Earth (such as World Population Density) can also be applied to Mars. Layers of Mars can also be applied onto Earth. Mars also has a small application found near the face on Mars. It is called Meliza, and features a chat between you and an automatic robot speaker. It is useful for research on Mars, but is not recommended for normal conversations.
mission, Google introduced the Google Earth version of Google Moon
, which allows users to view satellite images of the Moon
. It was announced and demonstrated to a group of invited guests by Google along with Buzz Aldrin
at the Newseum
in Washington, D.C.
, now a part of Boeing
. Autometric created a visualization product named Edge Whole Earth and demonstrated this to Michael T. Jones. Chris Tanner, and others at SGI in 1996. Several other visualization products using imagery existed at the time, including Performer-based ones, but Michael T. Jones stated emphatically that he had "never thought of the complexities of rendering an entire globe..." The catch phrase "from outer space to in your face" was coined by Autometric President Dan Gordon, and used to explain his concept for personal/local/global range. Edge blazed a trail as well in broadcasting, being used in 1997 on CBS News
with Dan Rather
, in print for rendering large images draped over terrain for National Geographic, and used for special effects in the feature film Shadow Conspiracy
in 1997. In 2000, Edge Viewer was made available through the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
for free.
Gordon was a huge fan of the ‘Earth’ program described in Neal Stephenson
's sci-fi classic Snow Crash
. Indeed, a Google Earth co-founder claimed that Google Earth was modeled after Snow Crash, while another co-founder said it was inspired by the short science education film Powers of Ten
. In fact Google Earth was at least partly inspired by a Silicon Graphics
demo called "From Outer Space to in Your Face" which zoomed from space into the Swiss Alps
then into the Matterhorn
. This launch demo was hosted by an Onyx 3000
with InfiniteReality4 graphics, which supported Clip Mapping and was inspired by the hardware texture paging capability (although it did not use the Clip Mapping) and "Powers of Ten". The first Google Earth implementation called Earth Viewer emerged from Intrinsic Graphics as a demonstration of Chris Tanner's software based implementation of a Clip Mapping texture paging system and was spun off as Keyhole Inc. Earth Viewer was the inevitable ultimate realization of the capabilities of a seamless texture paging system and many of the individuals working on Earth Viewer were Silicon Graphics alumni.
The most likely cause of failure is insufficient video RAM: the software is designed to warn the user if their graphics card is not able to support Earth (this often occurs due to insufficient Video RAM or buggy graphics card drivers). The next most likely mode of failure is Internet access speed. Fast broadband Internet (Cable, DSL, T1, etc.) is required.
and iFrames, are rendered with an embedded WebKit
engine.
was released on January 10, 2006, and is available for download from the Google Earth website. With a few exceptions noted below, the Mac version appears to be stable and complete, with virtually all the same functionality as the original Windows version.
Screenshots and an actual binary of the Mac version had been leaked to the Internet on December 8, 2005. The leaked version was significantly incomplete. Among other things, neither the Help menu nor its "Display License" feature worked, indicating that this version was intended for Google's internal use only. Google released no statement regarding the leak.
The Mac version runs only under Mac OS X version 10.4
or later. There is no embedded browser, no direct interface to Gmail
and no full screen option. As of January 2009 there are a few bugs concerning the menu bar when switching between applications and a few bugs concerning annotation balloons and printing.
From version 4.1.7076.4558 (released on May 9, 2007) onward Mac OS X users can, among other new features, upgrade to the "Plus" version via an option in the Google Earth menu. Some users reported difficulties with Google Earth crashing in the then current version when zooming in.
, as a native port using the Qt-toolkit
. It is proprietary software
specifically in order to impose Digital Rights Management
; the Free Software Foundation
consider the development of a free compatible client for Google Earth to be a High Priority Free Software Project.
, iPod Touch
and the iPad
, was released for free on the App Store on October 27, 2008. It makes use of the multi-touch
interface to move on the globe, zoom or rotate the view, and allow to select the current location using the iPhone integrated Assisted GPS
. This version, however, does not feature layers like computer versions do. Like Google Maps, it only integrates the Wikipedia and Panoramio layers.
Originally, these features cost extra in addition to the $399 fee, but more recently have been included in the package.
Unlike the free version of Google Earth, the professional version does not work on Linux.
.
The Google Earth Plug-in is currently available for the following web browsers and operating systems:
Microsoft Windows (2000, XP, Vista, and 7)
Apple Mac OS X 10.4 and higher (Intel and PowerPC)
To date the plug-in supports the following layers:
It also supports 'Sky Mode', 'Photo Overlays', and provides much of the same controls and information bar as the full application.
with the 15m [panchromatic] Landsat imagery. However, Google is actively replacing this base imagery with 2.5m SPOTImage
imagery and several higher resolution datasets mentioned below. Some population centers are also covered by aircraft imagery (orthophoto
graphy) with several pixels per meter. Oceans are covered at a much lower resolution, as are a number of islands; notably, the Isles of Scilly
off southwest United Kingdom
were at a resolution of about 500 m or less, although this has since been addressed.
Google has resolved many inaccuracies in the vector mapping since the original public release of the software, without requiring an update to the program itself. An example of this was the absence from Google Earth's map boundaries of the Nunavut
territory in Canada, a territory that had been created on April 1, 1999; this mistake was corrected by one of the data updates in early 2006. Recent updates have also increased the coverage of detailed aerial photography, particularly in certain areas of western and central Europe.
The images are not all taken at the same time, but are generally current to within three years. However, with the release of Google Earth 5.0, it has historical images dating back to the 1940s in some spots. Image sets are sometimes not correctly stitched together. Updates to the photographic database can occasionally be noticed when drastic changes take place in the appearance of the landscape, for example Google Earth's incomplete updates of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina
, or when placemarks appear to shift unexpectedly across the Earth's surface. Though the placemarks have not in fact moved, the imagery is composed and stitched differently. Such an update to London's photography in early 2006 created shifts of 15–20 metres in many areas, noticeable because the resolution is so high.
Place name and road detail vary greatly from place to place. They are most accurate in North America, Europe and Australia, but regular mapping updates are improving coverage elsewhere.
Errors sometimes occur due to the technology used to measure the height of terrain; for example, tall buildings in Adelaide
, Australia cause one part of the city to be rendered as a small mountain, when it is in fact flat. Also, in Downtown Los Angeles
, there is a large hill in the approximate location of Bunker Hill, where many of the skyscrapers are located. The height of the Eiffel Tower
creates a similar effect in the rendering of Paris. Also, prior to the release of version 5.0 in February 2009, elevations below sea level were presented as sea level, for example: Salton City, California
; Death Valley; and the Dead Sea
were all listed as 0 m when Salton City is −38 m, Death Valley −86 m, and the Dead Sea −420 m.
Where no 3 arc second
digital elevation data
was available, the three dimensional images covering some areas of high relief are not at all accurate, but most mountain areas are now well mapped. The underlying digital elevation model has been placed 3 arc seconds
too far north and up to 3 arc seconds too far west. This means that some steep mountain ridges incorrectly appear to have shadows extending over onto their south facing sides. Some high resolution images have also been misplaced: an example is the image covering Annapurna
, which is misplaced by about 12 arc seconds. Elevation data was recently updated to 10-meter (1/3-arc-second) resolution for much of the United States from the previous 30-meter (1-arc-second) resolution.
In some areas, local government jurisdictions have submitted more finely gridded terrain models through the Map Content Partners program. In March 2010, the County of Marin, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge by San Francisco, California, published a 40 cm gridded terrain surface of 1425 km2 through the program.
The "Measure" function shows that the length of equator
is about 40,030.24 km, giving an error of −0.112% compared with the actual value of 40,075.02 km Earth; for the meridional
circumference, it shows a length of about 39,963.13 km, also giving an error of −0.112% compared with the actual value of 40,007.86 km.
On December 16, 2007, most of Antarctica was updated to a 15 m resolution using imagery from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (1 m resolution images of some parts of Antarctica were added in June 2007); however, the Arctic polar ice cap
is completely absent from the current version of Google Earth, as are waves in the oceans. The geographic North Pole
is found hovering over the Arctic Ocean and the tiling system produces artifacts
near the poles as the tiles become 'infinitely' small and rounding errors accumulate.
Cloud cover and shadows can make it difficult or impossible to see details in some land areas, including the shadow side of mountains.
Some parts of the world have still not been photographed. Very low resolution photos or false color photos indicate that the area has not been photographed. On Google Earth 6.0 it is easy to see areas that are not photographed by simply clicking the Historical imagery option on.
s, including national officials, as being an invasion of privacy
and even posing a threat to national security
. The typical argument is that the software provides information about military or other critical installations that could be used by terrorists.
Some citizens may express concerns over aerial information depicting their properties and residences being disseminated freely. As relatively few jurisdictions actually guarantee the individual's right to privacy, as opposed to the state's right to secrecy, this is an evolving but minor point.
Perhaps aware of these critiques, for a time, Google had Area 51
(which is highly visible and easy to find) in Nevada as a default placemark when Google Earth is first installed.
As a result of pressure from the United States government, the residence of the Vice President
at Number One Observatory Circle
was obscured through pixelization
in Google Earth and Google Maps
in 2006, but has since been lifted. The usefulness of this downgrade is questionable, as high-resolution photos and aerial surveys of the property are readily available on the Internet elsewhere. Capitol Hill used to also be pixelized in this way, but this was lifted. The Royal Stables in The Hague
, Netherlands
used to be pixelized as well, but was partially lifted. If one zooms in too close to the Stables, it is still pixelized.
Critics have expressed concern over the willingness of Google to cripple their dataset to cater to special interests, believing that intentionally obscuring any land goes against its stated goal of letting the user "point and zoom to any place on the planet that you want to explore".
In the United Kingdom
, critics have also argued that Google Earth has led to the vandalism of private property, highlighting the graffiti
of a penis
being drawn on the roof of a house near Hungerford
, on the roof of Yarm School
at Stockton on Tees and on the playing fields of a school in Southampton
as examples of this.
In Hazleton
, Pennsylvania
, media attention and critics focused on Google Earth once more because of the defacing of the Hazleton Area Highschool Football field. Grass was removed to create the image of a penis approximately 35 yards long and 20 yards wide.
Recent versions of Google Earth require a software component running in the background that will automatically download and install updates. Several users expressed concerns that there is not an easy way to disable this updater, as it currently runs without the permission of the user.
ed map. Any derivative from Google Earth is made from copyrighted data which, under United States Copyright Law
, may not be used except under the licenses Google provides. Google allows non-commercial
personal use of the images (e.g. on a personal website or blog) as long as copyrights and attributions are preserved.
By contrast, images created with NASA's globe software World Wind
use The Blue Marble
, Landsat or USGS layer, each of which is a terrain layer in the public domain
. Works created by an agency of the United States government are public domain at the moment of creation. This means that those images can be freely modified, redistributed and used for commercial
purposes.
, Panoramio
and YouTube
. Google updates with new layers often. Many Google Earth layers, such as Panoramio and Google Earth Community layers, are updated daily with entries from the respective websites.
computer
building model
s in many cities, in these styles:
Any real world building can be created for Google Earth via a number of avenues:
In 2009, in a unique collaboration between Google and the Museo del Prado
in Madrid
, the museum selected 14 of its most important paintings to be photographed and displayed at the ultrahigh resolution of 14,000 megapixels inside the 3D version of the Prado in Google Earth and Google Maps
.
, the Netherlands
, Taiwan
, Switzerland, Canada, Mexico, Sweden, Norway, South Africa and Finland.
.
.
Virtual globe
A virtual globe is a 3D software model or representation of the Earth or another world. A virtual globe provides the user with the ability to freely move around in the virtual environment by changing the viewing angle and position. Compared to a conventional globe, virtual globes have the...
, map
Map
A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....
and geographical
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc
Keyhole, Inc
Keyhole, Inc., founded in 2001, was a pioneering software development company specializing in geospatial data visualization applications and was acquired by Google in 2004...
, a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funded company acquired by Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
in 2004 (see In-Q-Tel
In-Q-Tel
In-Q-Tel of Arlington, Virginia, United States is a not-for-profit venture capital firm that invests in high-tech companies for the sole purpose of keeping the Central Intelligence Agency equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability...
). It maps the Earth by the superimposition
Superimposition
In graphics, superimposition is the placement of an image or video on top of an already-existing image or video, usually to add to the overall image effect, but also sometimes to conceal something .This technique is used in cartography to produce photomaps by superimposing grid lines, contour lines...
of images obtained from satellite imagery
Satellite imagery
Satellite imagery consists of photographs of Earth or other planets made by means of artificial satellites.- History :The first images from space were taken on sub-orbital flights. The U.S-launched V-2 flight on October 24, 1946 took one image every 1.5 seconds...
, aerial photography
Aerial photography
Aerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or...
and GIS
Geographic Information System
A geographic information system, geographical information science, or geospatial information studies is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data...
3D
Computer graphics
Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware....
globe. It was available under three different licenses, two currently: Google Earth, a free version with limited function; Google Earth Plus (discontinued), which included additional features; and Google Earth Pro ($399 per year), which is intended for commercial use.
The product, re-released as Google Earth in 2005, is currently available for use on personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s running Windows 2000
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
and above, Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
10.3.9 and above, Linux kernel
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....
: 2.6 or later (released on June 12, 2006), and FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
. Google Earth is also available as a browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
plugin which was released on May 28, 2008. It was also made available for mobile viewers on the iPhone OS on October 28, 2008, as a free download from the App Store, and is available to Android users as a free app on the Android Market
Android Market
Android Market is an online software store developed by Google for Android OS devices. Its gateway is an application program called "Market", preinstalled on most Android devices, allows users to browse and download mobile apps published by third-party developers...
. In addition to releasing an updated Keyhole based client, Google also added the imagery from the Earth database to their web-based mapping software, Google Maps
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
. The release of Google Earth in June 2005 to the public caused a more than tenfold increase in media coverage on virtual globe
Virtual globe
A virtual globe is a 3D software model or representation of the Earth or another world. A virtual globe provides the user with the ability to freely move around in the virtual environment by changing the viewing angle and position. Compared to a conventional globe, virtual globes have the...
s between 2004 and 2005, driving public interest in geospatial
Geospatial
Geospatial analysis is an approach to applying statistical analysis and other informational techniques to geographically based data. Such analysis employs spatial software and analytical methods with terrestrial or geographic datasets, including geographic information systems and...
technologies and applications.
As of October 2011 Google Earth has been downloaded more than a billion times.
Overview
Google Earth displays satellite images of varying resolution of the Earth's surface, allowing users to see things like cities and houses looking perpendicularly down or at an oblique angleOblique Angle
Oblique angle can refer to:*An angle which is not a multiple of 90°*Another word for "Dutch angle" in cinematography...
(see also bird's eye view
Bird's Eye View
"Bird's Eye View" is a single by Oakland Hip Hop group Zion I, released in 2005 on Live Up Records. The single was the first released from their third album True & Livin. The song, like Common's classic "I Used to Love H.E.R.", addresses the state of Hip Hop by comparing the culture to a woman. The...
). The degree of resolution available is based somewhat on the points of interest and popularity, but most land (except for some islands) is covered in at least 15 meters of resolution. Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Australia; Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
; and Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
include examples of the highest resolution, at 15 cm (6 inches). Google Earth allows users to search for addresses for some countries, enter coordinates, or simply use the mouse to browse to a location.
For large parts of the surface of the Earth only 2D images are available, from almost vertical photography. Viewing this from an oblique angle, there is perspective in the sense that objects which are horizontally far away are seen smaller, like viewing a large photograph, not quite like a 3D view.
For other parts of the surface of the Earth 3D images of terrain and buildings are available. Google Earth uses digital elevation model
Digital elevation model
A digital elevation model is a digital model or 3-D representation of a terrain's surface — commonly for a planet , moon, or asteroid — created from terrain elevation data....
(DEM) data collected by NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission is an international research effort that obtained digital elevation models on a near-global scale from 56° S to 60° N, to generate the most complete high-resolution digital topographic database of Earth prior to the release of the ASTER GDEM in 2009...
(SRTM). This means one can view the whole earth in three dimension
Dimension
In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a space or object is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus a line has a dimension of one because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it...
s. Since November 2006, the 3D views of many mountains, including Mount Everest, have been improved by the use of supplementary DEM data to fill the gaps in SRTM coverage.
Many people use the applications to add their own data, making them available through various sources, such as the Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) or blogs mentioned in the link section below. Google Earth is able to show all kinds of images overlaid on the surface of the earth and is also a Web Map Service
Web Map Service
A Web Map Service is a standard protocol for serving georeferenced map images over the Internet that are generated by a map server using data from a GIS database...
client. Google Earth supports managing three-dimensional Geospatial
Geospatial
Geospatial analysis is an approach to applying statistical analysis and other informational techniques to geographically based data. Such analysis employs spatial software and analytical methods with terrestrial or geographic datasets, including geographic information systems and...
data through Keyhole Markup Language
Keyhole Markup Language
Keyhole Markup Language is an XML notation for expressing geographic annotation and visualization within Internet-based, two-dimensional maps and three-dimensional Earth browsers. KML was developed for use with Google Earth, which was originally named Keyhole Earth Viewer. It was created by...
(KML).
Google Earth is simply based on 3D maps, it has the capability to show 3D buildings and structures (such as bridges), which consist of users' submissions using SketchUp
SketchUp
SketchUp is a 3D modeling program marketed by Google and designed for architectural, civil, and mechanical engineers as well as filmmakers, game developers,...
, a 3D modeling
3D modeling
In 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical representation of any three-dimensional surface of object via specialized software. The product is called a 3D model...
program software. In prior versions of Google Earth (before Version 4), 3D buildings were limited to a few cities, and had poorer rendering with no textures. Many buildings and structures from around the world now have detailed 3D structures; including (but not limited to) those in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, India, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and the cities, Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
and Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
. In August 2007, Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
became the first city entirely shown in 3D, including textures such as façades. The 'Westport3D' model was created by 3D imaging firm AM3TD using long-distance laser scanning technology and digital photography and is the first such model of an Irish town to be created. As it was developed initially to aid Local Government in carrying out their town planning functions it includes the highest resolution photo-realistic textures to be found anywhere in Google Earth. Three-dimensional renderings are available for certain buildings and structures around the world via Google's 3D Warehouse and other websites. Although there are many cities on Google Earth that are fully or partially 3D you can get more by going on to the Earth Gallery. The Earth Gallery is a library of modifications of Google Earth people have made. In the library there are more than just modifications for 3D buildings there are models of earth quakes using the Google Earth model, 3D forests, and much more.
Recently, Google added a feature that allows users to monitor traffic speeds at loops located every 200 yards in real-time. In version 4.3 released on April 15, 2008, Google Street View
Google Street View
Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from various positions along many streets in the world...
was fully integrated into the program allowing the program to provide an on the street level view in many locations.
On January 32nd, 2010, the entirety of Google Earth's ocean floor imagery was updated to new images by SIO, NOAA, US Navy, NGA, and GEBCO. The new images have caused smaller islands, such as some atolls in the Maldives
Maldives
The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and...
, to be rendered invisible despite their shores being completely outlined.
Languages
Since version 5.0, Google Earth has been available in the following languages:- AlbaniaAlbanian languageAlbanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
- ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
- BulgarianBulgarian languageBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
- Bangla
- CatalanCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
- ChineseChinese languageThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
(Traditional) - Chinese (Simplified)
- CroatianCroatian languageCroatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
- CzechCzech languageCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
- DanishDanish languageDanish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
- DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
- EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
(American)American EnglishAmerican English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States.... - English (British)British EnglishBritish English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
- Ethiopian
- FilipinoFilipino languageThis move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:...
- FinnishFinnish languageFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
- FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
- GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
- GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
- HebrewHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
- Hindi
- HungarianHungarian languageHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
- IndonesianIndonesian languageIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
- ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
- JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
- KoreanKorean languageKorean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
- LatvianLatvian languageLatvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
- LithuanianLithuanian languageLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
- NorwegianNorwegian languageNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
- PersianPersian languagePersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
- PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
- Portuguese (Portugal)European PortugueseEuropean Portuguese refers to the variety of Portuguese spoken in continental Portugal, as well as the Azores and Madeira islands...
- Portuguese (Brazil)Brazilian PortugueseBrazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....
- RomanianRomanian languageRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
- RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
- SerbianSerbian languageSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
- SlovakSlovak languageSlovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
- Slovene
- Spanish (Spain)Peninsular SpanishPeninsular Spanish, also known as European Spanish, refers to the varieties of the Spanish language spoken in the Iberian Peninsula, as opposed to the Spanish spoken in the Americas and in the Canary Islands....
- Spanish (Latin America)
- SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
- ThaiThai languageThai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
- TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
- UkrainianUkrainian languageUkrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
- VietnameseVietnamese languageVietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
Uses
Google Earth is useful for many day-to-day and other purposes.- Google Earth can be used to view areas subjected to widespread disasters if Google supplies up-to-date images. For example after the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake2010 Haiti earthquakeThe 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, with an epicentre near the town of Léogâne, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time on Tuesday, 12 January 2010.By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks...
images of Haiti were made available on January 17.
- With Google's push for the inclusion of Google Earth in the Classroom, teachers are adopting Google Earth in the classroom for lesson planning, such as teaching students geographical themes (location, culture, characteristics, human interaction, and movement) to creating mashupsMashup (web application hybrid)In Web development, a mashup is a Web page or application that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more sources to create new services...
with other web applications such as WikipediaWikipediaWikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
.
- One can explore and place location bookmarks on the Moon, and Mars.
- One can also get directions using Google Earth, using variables such as street names, cities, and establishments.
- Google Earth can also function as a "hub" of knowledge, pertaining to your location. By enabling certain options, one can see the location of gas stations, restaurants, museums, and other public establishments in their area. Google Earth can also dot the map with links to images, YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
videos, and WikipediaWikipediaWikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
articles relevant to the area being viewed.
Wikipedia and Panoramio integration
In December 2006, Google Earth added a new layer called "Geographic Web" that includes integration with WikipediaWikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
and Panoramio
Panoramio
Panoramio is a geolocation-oriented photo sharing website. Accepted photos uploaded to the site can be accessed as a layer in Google Earth and Google Maps, with new photos being added at the end of every month. The site's goal is to allow Google Earth users to learn more about a given area by...
. In Wikipedia, entries are scraped
Web scraping
Web scraping is a computer software technique of extracting information from websites...
for coordinates via the . There is also a community-layer from the project Wikipedia-World. More coordinates are used, different types are in the display and different languages are supported than the built-in Wikipedia layer. Google announced on May 30, 2007 that it is acquiring Panoramio
Panoramio
Panoramio is a geolocation-oriented photo sharing website. Accepted photos uploaded to the site can be accessed as a layer in Google Earth and Google Maps, with new photos being added at the end of every month. The site's goal is to allow Google Earth users to learn more about a given area by...
. In March 2010, Google removed the "Geographic Web" layer. The "Panoramio" layer became part of the main layers and the "Wikipedia" layer was placed in the "More" layer.
Flight simulator
In Google Earth v4.2 a flight simulator was included as a hidden feature. Starting with v4.3 it is no longer hidden. Initially the F-16 Fighting FalconF-16 Fighting Falcon
The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a multirole jet fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force . Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft. Over 4,400 aircraft have been built since...
and the Cirrus SR-22 were the only aircraft available, and they could be used with only a few airports. In addition to keyboard control, the simulator can be controlled with a mouse or joystick. Google Earth v5.1 and higher crashes when starting flight simulator with Saitek and other joysticks.
The user can also fly underwater.
Featured planes
- F-16 Fighting FalconF-16 Fighting FalconThe General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a multirole jet fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force . Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft. Over 4,400 aircraft have been built since...
– A much higher speed and maximum altitude than the Cirrus SR-22, it has the ability to fly at a maximum speed of Mach 2. The take-off speed is 225 knots, the landing speed is 200 knots (370 km/h).
- Cirrus SR-22 – Although slower and with a lower maximum altitude, the SR-22 is much easier to handle and is preferred for up-close viewing of Google Earth's imagery. The take-off speed is 75 knots (139 km/h), the landing speed is 70 knots (130 km/h)
The flight simulator can be commanded with the keyboard, mouse or plugged-in joystick. Broadband connection and a high speed computer provides a very realistic experience. The simulator also runs with animation, allowing objects (for example: planes]) to animate while on the simulator. Image overlays can also be added to make it look like the cockpit of a plane.
Sky mode
Google SkyGoogle Sky
Google Sky is a feature for Google's Google Earth and an online sky/outer space viewer at www.google.com/sky. It was created on August 27, 2007...
is a feature that was introduced in Google Earth 4.2 on August 22, 2007, and allows users to view star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s and other celestial bodies. It was produced by Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
through a partnership with the Space Telescope Science Institute
Space Telescope Science Institute
The Space Telescope Science Institute is the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope and for the James Webb Space Telescope...
(STScI) in Baltimore, the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 1990 and remains in operation. A 2.4 meter aperture telescope in low Earth orbit, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared...
. Dr. Alberto Conti
Alberto Conti
Alberto Conti , is an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute. He is one of the creators of the concept.-Professional career:Conti was born in Palmanova, Italy...
and his co-developer Dr. Carol Christian
Carol Christian
Carol Christian is an American astronomer, educator, and Information Technologist. Her astronomical work is focussed on stellar populations. She has worked extensively in studying the use of emerging technologies for science education....
of STScI plan to add the public images from 2007, as well as color images of all of the archived data from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Newly released Hubble
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 1990 and remains in operation. A 2.4 meter aperture telescope in low Earth orbit, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared...
pictures will be added to the Google Sky program as soon as they are issued. New features such as multi-wavelength data, positions of major satellites and their orbits as well as educational resources will be provided to the Google Earth community and also through Christian and Conti's website for Sky. Also visible on Sky mode are constellations, stars, galaxies and animations depicting the planets in their orbits. A real-time Google Sky mashup
Mashup (web application hybrid)
In Web development, a mashup is a Web page or application that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more sources to create new services...
of recent astronomical transients, using the VOEvent
VOEvent
VOEvent is a standardized language used to report observations of astronomical events; it was officially adopted in 2006 by the International Virtual Observatory Alliance...
protocol, is being provided by the VOEventNetcollaboration. Google's Earth maps are being updated each 5 minutes.
Google Sky faces competition from Microsoft WorldWide Telescope (which runs only under the Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
operating systems) and from Stellarium, a free open source planetarium that runs under Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, and Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
.
On March 13, 2008, Google made a web-based version of Google Sky available via the internet.
Street View
On April 15, 2008 with version 4.3, Google fully integrated its Street ViewGoogle Street View
Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from various positions along many streets in the world...
into Google Earth. In version 6.0, the photo zooming function has been removed because it is incompatible with the new 'seamless' navigation.
Google Street View provides 360° panoramic street-level views and allows users to view parts of selected cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas at ground level. When it was launched on May 25, 2007 for Google Maps
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
, only five cities were included. It has since expanded to more than 40 U.S. cities, and includes the suburbs of many, and in some cases, other nearby cities. Recent updates have now implemented Street View in most of the major cities of Australia and New Zealand as well as parts of Canada, parts of South Africa, Denmark, Mexico, Japan, Norway, Finland, Spain, Sweden, France, the UK, Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Taiwan, and Singapore.
Google Street View, when operated, displays photos that were previously taken by a camera mounted on an automobile, and can be navigated by using the mouse to click on photograph icons displayed on the screen in the user's direction of travel. Using these devices, the photos can be viewed in different sizes, from any direction, and from a variety of angles.
Water and ocean
Introduced in version 5.0 (February 2009), the Google Ocean feature allows users to zoom below the surface of the ocean and view the 3D bathymetryBathymetry
Bathymetry is the study of underwater depth of lake or ocean floors. In other words, bathymetry is the underwater equivalent to hypsometry. The name comes from Greek βαθύς , "deep", and μέτρον , "measure"...
beneath the waves. Supporting over 20 content layers, it contains information from leading scientists and oceanographers
Oceanography
Oceanography , also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean...
. On April 14, 2009, Google added underwater terrain data for the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
. In 2010, Google added underwater terrain data for Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal is the world's oldest at 30 million years old and deepest lake with an average depth of 744.4 metres.Located in the south of the Russian region of Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast, it is the most voluminous freshwater lake in the...
.
In June 2011, higher resolution of some deep ocean floor areas increased in focus from 1-kilometer grids to 100 meters thanks to a new synthesis of seafloor topography released through Google Earth. The high resolution features were developed by oceanographers at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory from scientific data collected on research cruises. The sharper focus is available for about 5 percent of the oceans (an area larger than North America). Underwater scenery can be seen of the Hudson Canyon off New York City, the Wini Seamount near Hawaii, and the sharp-edged 10,000-foot-high Mendocino Ridge off the U.S Pacific Coast. There is a Google 2011 Seafloor Tour for those interested in viewing ocean deep terrain.
Historical Imagery
Introduced in version 5.0, Historical Imagery allows users to traverse back in time and study earlier stages of any place. This feature allows research that require analysis of past records of various places.Mars
Google Earth 5 includes a separate globe of the planet Mars, that can be viewed and analysed for research purposes. The maps are of a much higher resolution than those on the browser version of Google MarsGoogle Mars
Google Mars was at first an in-browser version of Google Maps which provides a visible imagery view, like Google Moon, as well as infrared imagery and shaded relief of the planet Mars. Users can toggle between the elevation, visible, and infrared data, in the same manner as switching between map,...
and it also includes 3D renderings of the Martian terrain. There are also some extremely high resolution images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is a NASA multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and Exploration of Mars from orbit...
's HiRISE
HiRISE
High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is a camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The 65 kg , $40 million instrument was built under the direction of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp....
camera that are of a similar resolution to those of the cities on Earth. Finally, there are many high resolution panoramic images from various Mars landers, such as the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit
Spirit rover
Spirit, MER-A , is a robotic rover on Mars, active from 2004 to 2010. It was one of two rovers of NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission. It landed successfully on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity , landed on the other side of the planet...
and Opportunity
Opportunity rover
Opportunity, MER-B , is a robotic rover on the planet Mars, active since 2004. It is the remaining rover in NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission...
, that can be viewed in a similar way to Google Street View
Google Street View
Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from various positions along many streets in the world...
. Interestingly enough, layers on Google Earth (such as World Population Density) can also be applied to Mars. Layers of Mars can also be applied onto Earth. Mars also has a small application found near the face on Mars. It is called Meliza, and features a chat between you and an automatic robot speaker. It is useful for research on Mars, but is not recommended for normal conversations.
Moon
On July 20, 2009, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11Apollo 11
In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...
mission, Google introduced the Google Earth version of Google Moon
Google Moon
Google Moon is a service similar to Google Maps that shows satellite images of the Moon. It was launched by Google on July 20, 2005, the 36th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing...
, which allows users to view satellite images of the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
. It was announced and demonstrated to a group of invited guests by Google along with Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin is an American mechanical engineer, retired United States Air Force pilot and astronaut who was the Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history...
at the Newseum
Newseum
The Newseum is an interactive museum of news and journalism located at 555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. The seven-level, museum features 15 theaters and 14 galleries. The Newseum's Berlin Wall Gallery includes the largest display of sections of the Berlin Wall outside of Germany...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Influences
Google Earth can be traced directly back to a small company named AutometricAutometric
Autometric Inc. was a company spun out of Paramount Pictures to work with early satellite imagery. The company created image analysis products for representing imagery on the earth, cataloging, and image augmentation. This company was purchase by Boeing Inc. at the end of 2000...
, now a part of Boeing
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
. Autometric created a visualization product named Edge Whole Earth and demonstrated this to Michael T. Jones. Chris Tanner, and others at SGI in 1996. Several other visualization products using imagery existed at the time, including Performer-based ones, but Michael T. Jones stated emphatically that he had "never thought of the complexities of rendering an entire globe..." The catch phrase "from outer space to in your face" was coined by Autometric President Dan Gordon, and used to explain his concept for personal/local/global range. Edge blazed a trail as well in broadcasting, being used in 1997 on CBS News
CBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
with Dan Rather
Dan Rather
Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...
, in print for rendering large images draped over terrain for National Geographic, and used for special effects in the feature film Shadow Conspiracy
Shadow Conspiracy
Shadow Conspiracy is a 1997 political thriller film starring Charlie Sheen, Donald Sutherland and Linda Hamilton. Sam Waterston, famous for his role as a district attorney in Law & Order, appears in the film as the president of the United States. It is the final film directed by George P...
in 1997. In 2000, Edge Viewer was made available through the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States with the primary mission of collecting, analyzing and distributing geospatial intelligence in support of national security. NGA was formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency ...
for free.
Gordon was a huge fan of the ‘Earth’ program described in Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.Difficult to categorize, his novels have been variously referred to as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk...
's sci-fi classic Snow Crash
Snow Crash
Snow Crash is Neal Stephenson's third novel, published in 1992. Like many of Stephenson's other novels it covers history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography, memetics, and philosophy....
. Indeed, a Google Earth co-founder claimed that Google Earth was modeled after Snow Crash, while another co-founder said it was inspired by the short science education film Powers of Ten
Powers of Ten
Powers of Ten is a 1968 American documentary short film written and directed by Charles and Ray Eames. The film depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten . The film is an adaptation of the book Cosmic View by Dutch educator Kees Boeke, and more recently is the basis of a new...
. In fact Google Earth was at least partly inspired by a Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
demo called "From Outer Space to in Your Face" which zoomed from space into the Swiss Alps
Swiss Alps
The Swiss Alps are the portion of the Alps mountain range that lies within Switzerland. Because of their central position within the entire Alpine range, they are also known as the Central Alps....
then into the Matterhorn
Matterhorn
The Matterhorn , Monte Cervino or Mont Cervin , is a mountain in the Pennine Alps on the border between Switzerland and Italy. Its summit is 4,478 metres high, making it one of the highest peaks in the Alps. The four steep faces, rising above the surrounding glaciers, face the four compass points...
. This launch demo was hosted by an Onyx 3000
SGI Origin 3000 and Onyx 3000
The Origin 3000 and the Onyx 3000 is a family of mid-range and high-end computers developed and manufactured by SGI. The Origin 3000 is a server, while the Onyx 3000 is a visualization system. Both systems were introduced in July 2000 to succeed the Origin 2000 and the Onyx2 respectively. These...
with InfiniteReality4 graphics, which supported Clip Mapping and was inspired by the hardware texture paging capability (although it did not use the Clip Mapping) and "Powers of Ten". The first Google Earth implementation called Earth Viewer emerged from Intrinsic Graphics as a demonstration of Chris Tanner's software based implementation of a Clip Mapping texture paging system and was spun off as Keyhole Inc. Earth Viewer was the inevitable ultimate realization of the capabilities of a seamless texture paging system and many of the individuals working on Earth Viewer were Silicon Graphics alumni.
Imagery and coordination
- Coordinate System and Projection
- The internal coordinate system of Google Earth is geographic coordinates (latitude/longitude) on the World Geodetic System of 1984 (WGS84) datum.
- Google Earth shows the earth as it looks from an elevated platform such as an airplane or orbiting satellite. The projection used to achieve this effect is called the General PerspectiveGeneral Perspective projectionThe General Perspective Projection is a map projection of cartography.When the Earth is photographed from space, the camera records the view as a perspective projection. If the camera precisely faces the center of the Earth, the projection is Vertical Perspective...
. This is similar to the Orthographic projectionOrthographic projection (cartography)An orthographic projection is a map projection of cartography. Like the stereographic projection and gnomonic projection, orthographic projection is a perspective projection, in which the sphere is projected onto a tangent plane or secant plane. The point of perspective for the orthographic...
, except that the point of perspective is a finite (near earth) distance rather than an infinite (deep space) distance.
- Baseline resolutions
- Czech Republic: 0.1 - 0.5 m (by Eurosense / Geodis Brno)
- Slovakia: 0.5 m (by Eurosense / Geodis Slovakia)
- Hungary: 2.5 m SPOT Images. Budapest approx. 0,3 m.
- Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, UK, Andorra, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Vatican City: 1 m or better
- Balkans: 2.5 m (medium resolution)
- U.S.: 1 m (excludes Alaska & Hawaii)
- Global: Generally 15 m (some areas, such as Antarctica, are in extremely low resolution), but this depends on the quality of the satellite/aerial photograph uploaded.
- Typical high resolutions
- Europe: 0.3 m, 0.15 m (e.g. Berlin, ZurichZürichZurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, HamburgHamburg-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
), 0.1 m PraguePraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million... - U.S.: 1 m, 0.6 m, 0.3 m, 0.15 m (extremely rare; e.g. CambridgeCambridge, MassachusettsCambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
and Google Campus, or GlendaleGlendale, CaliforniaGlendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
)
- Europe: 0.3 m, 0.15 m (e.g. Berlin, Zurich
- Altitude resolution:
- Surface: varies by country
- Seabed: Not previously applicable, but since the introduction of "Ocean", elevation data has been introduced (a colorscale approximating sea floor depth is "printed" on the spherical surface at views from high altitudes).
- Age: Images dates vary. The image data can be seen from squares made when DigitalGlobe Coverage is enabled. The date next to the copyright information is not the correct image date. Zooming in or out could change the date of the pictures. Most of the international urban image dates are from 2004 and have not been updated. However, most US images are kept current. Google announces imagery updates on their LatLong Blog in form of a quiz, with hints of the updated locations. The answers are posted some days later in the same blog.
Hardware and software
Google Earth is unlikely to operate on older hardware configurations. The most recent system requirements update document these minimum configurations:- Pentium 3, 500MHz
- 256 MegabyteMegabyteThe megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
s of RAM - 400 MB free disk space
- Network speed: 128 kbit/s
- 64MB DirectX9 and 3D capable graphics card
- Resolution of 1024x768, 16-bit High Color - DirectX 9 (to run in Direct X mode)
- Windows 2000Windows 2000Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
, Windows XPWindows XPWindows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
, Windows VistaWindows VistaWindows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
, Windows 7, LinuxLinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
or Mac OS XMac OS XMac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
The most likely cause of failure is insufficient video RAM: the software is designed to warn the user if their graphics card is not able to support Earth (this often occurs due to insufficient Video RAM or buggy graphics card drivers). The next most likely mode of failure is Internet access speed. Fast broadband Internet (Cable, DSL, T1, etc.) is required.
Linux specifications
Minimum System Requirements:- Kernel: 2.4 or later
- CPU: Pentium III, 500 MHz
- System Memory (RAM): 128 MB
- Hard Disk: 400 MB free space
- Network Speed: 128 kbit/s
- Screen: 1024x768, 16 bit color
- Tested and works on the following distributions:
- Ubuntu
Ubuntu (operating system)Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...
5.10 or later- SUSE 10.1 or later
- Fedora Core
Fedora (operating system)Fedora is a RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat...
4 or later- Linspire
LinspireLinspire, previously known as LindowsOS, was a commercial operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux and later Ubuntu. Linspire was published by Linspire, Inc. and focused on ease-of-use, targeting home PC users...
5.1- Gentoo
Gentoo LinuxGentoo Linux is a computer operating system built on top of the Linux kernel and based on the Portage package management system. It is distributed as free and open source software. Unlike a conventional software distribution, the user compiles the source code locally according to their chosen...
2006.0- Debian
DebianDebian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
3.1/4- Red Hat
Red HatRed Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
9- Slackware
SlackwareSlackware is a free and open source Linux-based operating system. It was one of the earliest operating systems to be built on top of the Linux kernel and is the oldest currently being maintained. Slackware was created by Patrick Volkerding of Slackware Linux, Inc. in 1993...
11.0- FreeBSD
FreeBSDFreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
6.1/7.0 with Linux Emulation- Arch Linux
Arch LinuxArch Linux is an independently developed, Linux-based operating system for i686 and x86-64 computers. It is composed predominantly of free and open source software, and supports community involvement....
0.7.2 Duke- Xandros
XandrosXandros is the name of both a line of operating systems and Xandros Corporation, the company which creates them. Xandros Desktop was a Linux distribution. The name Xandros is derived from the X Window System and the Greek island of Andros....
3.0.3 Business Edition- Mandriva
MandrivaMandriva S.A. is a publicly traded Linux and open source software company with its headquarters in Paris, France and development center in Curitiba, Brazil. Mandriva, S.A...
2007- Sabayon Linux 3.26
- PCLinuxOS
PCLinuxOSPCLinuxOS, often shortened to PCLOS, is a GNU/Linux distribution, with KDE Plasma Desktop as its default user interface. It is a primarily free software operating system for personal computers aimed at ease of use...
5.0- PC/OS 7.10
- Ubuntu
Web browsing
As of Google Earth 5, the contents of description balloons, which are created in KML using JavaScriptJavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
and iFrames, are rendered with an embedded WebKit
WebKit
WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...
engine.
Release timeline
- Keyhole Earthviewer 1.0 - June 11, 2001
- Keyhole Earthviewer 1.3 - January 1, 2002
- Keyhole Earthviewer 1.7 - February 2002
- Keyhole LT 1.7.1 - August 26, 2003
- Keyhole NV 1.7.2 - October 16, 2003
- Keyhole 2.2 - August 19, 2004
- GOOGLE UNIVERSE 1.0 - January 2005
- Google Earth 3.0 - June 28, 2005
- Google Earth 4.0 - June 11, 2006
- Google Earth 4.1 - May 29, 2007
- Google Earth 4.2 - August 23, 2007
- Google Earth 4.3 - April 15, 2008
- Google Earth 5.0 - May 5, 2009
- Google Earth 5.1 - November 18, 2009
- Google Earth 5.2 - July 1, 2010
- Google Earth 6.0 - March 29, 2011
- Google Earth 6.1 - October 21, 2011
Mac version
A version for Mac OS XMac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
was released on January 10, 2006, and is available for download from the Google Earth website. With a few exceptions noted below, the Mac version appears to be stable and complete, with virtually all the same functionality as the original Windows version.
Screenshots and an actual binary of the Mac version had been leaked to the Internet on December 8, 2005. The leaked version was significantly incomplete. Among other things, neither the Help menu nor its "Display License" feature worked, indicating that this version was intended for Google's internal use only. Google released no statement regarding the leak.
The Mac version runs only under Mac OS X version 10.4
Mac OS X v10.4
Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger is the fifth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Tiger was released to the public on 29 April 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X Panther , which had been released 18 months earlier...
or later. There is no embedded browser, no direct interface to Gmail
Gmail
Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google. Users may access Gmail as secure webmail, as well via POP3 or IMAP protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though...
and no full screen option. As of January 2009 there are a few bugs concerning the menu bar when switching between applications and a few bugs concerning annotation balloons and printing.
From version 4.1.7076.4558 (released on May 9, 2007) onward Mac OS X users can, among other new features, upgrade to the "Plus" version via an option in the Google Earth menu. Some users reported difficulties with Google Earth crashing in the then current version when zooming in.
Linux version
Starting with the version 4 beta Google Earth functions under LinuxLinux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, as a native port using the Qt-toolkit
Qt (toolkit)
Qt is a cross-platform application framework that is widely used for developing application software with a graphical user interface , and also used for developing non-GUI programs such as command-line tools and consoles for servers...
. It is proprietary software
Proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...
specifically in order to impose Digital Rights Management
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
; the Free Software Foundation
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
consider the development of a free compatible client for Google Earth to be a High Priority Free Software Project.
iOS version
A version for the iOS, which runs on the iPhoneIPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
, iPod Touch
IPod Touch
The iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant, handheld game console, and Wi-Fi mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod Touch adds the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line...
and the iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
, was released for free on the App Store on October 27, 2008. It makes use of the multi-touch
Multi-touch
In computing, multi-touch refers to a touch sensing surface's ability to recognize the presence of two or more points of contact with the surface...
interface to move on the globe, zoom or rotate the view, and allow to select the current location using the iPhone integrated Assisted GPS
Assisted GPS
Assisted GPS, generally abbreviated as A-GPS or aGPS, is a system which can, under certain conditions, improve the startup performance, or time-to-first-fix of a GPS satellite-based positioning system. It is used extensively with GPS-capable cellular phones as its development was accelerated by...
. This version, however, does not feature layers like computer versions do. Like Google Maps, it only integrates the Wikipedia and Panoramio layers.
Google Earth Plus
Discontinued in December 2008, Google Earth Plus was an individual-oriented paid subscription upgrade to Google Earth that provided customers with the following features, most of which are now available in the free Google Earth:- GPS integration: read tracks and waypoints from a GPSGlobal Positioning SystemThe Global Positioning System is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites...
device. A variety of third party applications have been created which provide this functionality using the basic version of Google Earth by generating KML or KMZ files based on user-specified or user-recorded waypoints. However, Google Earth Plus provides direct support for the MagellanThales NavigationThales Navigation is a global GPS company created in 2001 from the merger of the Magellan Corporation and Thales Navigation, S.A.-Magellan:...
and GarminGarminGarmin Ltd. , incorporated in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, is the parent company of a group of companies founded in 1989 by Gary Burrell and Min Kao , that develops consumer, aviation, and marine technologies for the Global Positioning System...
product lines, which together hold a large share of the GPS market.
The Linux version of the Google Earth Plus application does not include any GPS functionality. - Higher resolution printing.
- Customer support via email.
- Data importer: read address points from CSVComma-separated valuesA comma-separated values file stores tabular data in plain-text form. As a result, such a file is easily human-readable ....
files; limited to 100 points/addresses. A feature allowing path and polygon annotations, which can be exported to KMLKeyhole Markup LanguageKeyhole Markup Language is an XML notation for expressing geographic annotation and visualization within Internet-based, two-dimensional maps and three-dimensional Earth browsers. KML was developed for use with Google Earth, which was originally named Keyhole Earth Viewer. It was created by...
, was formerly only available to Plus users, but was made free in version 4.0.2416. - Higher data download speeds
Google Earth Pro
For a $399 annual subscription fee, Google Earth Pro is a business-oriented upgrade to Google Earth that has more features than the Plus version. The Pro version includes add-on software such as:- Movie making.
- GIS data importer.
- Advanced printing modules.
- Radius and area measurements
Originally, these features cost extra in addition to the $399 fee, but more recently have been included in the package.
Unlike the free version of Google Earth, the professional version does not work on Linux.
Google Earth Enterprise
Google Earth Enterprise is a version of Google Earth designed for use by organizations whose businesses could take advantage of the program's capabilities.Automotive version
An automotive version of Google Earth is available in 2010 in the new Audi A8Audi A8
The Audi A8 is a four-door, full-size, luxury sedan car manufactured and marketed by the German automaker Audi since 1994. Succeeding the Audi V8, the A8 has been offered with front wheel drive or permanent four-wheel drive, with multitronic or tiptronic automatic transmissions — and in short- and...
.
Google Earth Plug-in
The Google Earth API is a free beta service, available for any web site that is free to consumers. The Plug-in and its JavaScript API allows users to place a version of Google Earth into web pages. The API does not have all the features of the full Google Earth Application but enables sophisticated 3D map applications to be built.The Google Earth Plug-in is currently available for the following web browsers and operating systems:
Microsoft Windows (2000, XP, Vista, and 7)
- Google Chrome 1.0+
- Internet Explorer 6.0+
- Firefox 2.0+
- Flock 1.0+
Apple Mac OS X 10.4 and higher (Intel and PowerPC)
- Safari 3.1+
- Firefox 3.0+
To date the plug-in supports the following layers:
- Terrain
- Roads
- Buildings
- Borders
- 3-D Buildings
It also supports 'Sky Mode', 'Photo Overlays', and provides much of the same controls and information bar as the full application.
Imagery resolution and accuracy
Most land areas are covered in satellite imagery with a resolution of about 15 m per pixel. This base imagery is 30m multispectral Landsat which is pansharpenedPansharpened image
Pansharpening is a process of merging high resolution panchromatic and lower resolution multispectral imagery to create a single high resolution color image. Google Maps and nearly every map creating company uses this technique to increase image quality...
with the 15m [panchromatic] Landsat imagery. However, Google is actively replacing this base imagery with 2.5m SPOTImage
Spot Image
Spot Image, a public limited company created in 1982 by the French Space Agency, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales , the IGN, and Space Manufacturers is a subsidiary of EADS Astrium...
imagery and several higher resolution datasets mentioned below. Some population centers are also covered by aircraft imagery (orthophoto
Orthophoto
An orthophoto, orthophotograph or orthoimage is an aerial photograph geometrically corrected such that the scale is uniform: the photo has the same lack of distortion as a map...
graphy) with several pixels per meter. Oceans are covered at a much lower resolution, as are a number of islands; notably, the Isles of Scilly
Isles of Scilly
The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The islands have had a unitary authority council since 1890, and are separate from the Cornwall unitary authority, but some services are combined with Cornwall and the islands are still part...
off southwest United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
were at a resolution of about 500 m or less, although this has since been addressed.
Google has resolved many inaccuracies in the vector mapping since the original public release of the software, without requiring an update to the program itself. An example of this was the absence from Google Earth's map boundaries of the Nunavut
Nunavut
Nunavut is the largest and newest federal territory of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993...
territory in Canada, a territory that had been created on April 1, 1999; this mistake was corrected by one of the data updates in early 2006. Recent updates have also increased the coverage of detailed aerial photography, particularly in certain areas of western and central Europe.
The images are not all taken at the same time, but are generally current to within three years. However, with the release of Google Earth 5.0, it has historical images dating back to the 1940s in some spots. Image sets are sometimes not correctly stitched together. Updates to the photographic database can occasionally be noticed when drastic changes take place in the appearance of the landscape, for example Google Earth's incomplete updates of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
, or when placemarks appear to shift unexpectedly across the Earth's surface. Though the placemarks have not in fact moved, the imagery is composed and stitched differently. Such an update to London's photography in early 2006 created shifts of 15–20 metres in many areas, noticeable because the resolution is so high.
Place name and road detail vary greatly from place to place. They are most accurate in North America, Europe and Australia, but regular mapping updates are improving coverage elsewhere.
Errors sometimes occur due to the technology used to measure the height of terrain; for example, tall buildings in Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, Australia cause one part of the city to be rendered as a small mountain, when it is in fact flat. Also, in Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, United States, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area...
, there is a large hill in the approximate location of Bunker Hill, where many of the skyscrapers are located. The height of the Eiffel Tower
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower is a puddle iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. Built in 1889, it has become both a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world...
creates a similar effect in the rendering of Paris. Also, prior to the release of version 5.0 in February 2009, elevations below sea level were presented as sea level, for example: Salton City, California
Salton City, California
Salton City is a census-designated place in Imperial County, California. The population was 3,763 at the 2010 census, up from 978 at the 2000 census. It is the largest Imperial County development on the Salton coast. It is part of the El Centro, California Metropolitan Statistical Area...
; Death Valley; and the Dead Sea
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...
were all listed as 0 m when Salton City is −38 m, Death Valley −86 m, and the Dead Sea −420 m.
Where no 3 arc second
Minute of arc
A minute of arc, arcminute, or minute of angle , is a unit of angular measurement equal to one sixtieth of one degree. In turn, a second of arc or arcsecond is one sixtieth of one minute of arc....
digital elevation data
Digital elevation model
A digital elevation model is a digital model or 3-D representation of a terrain's surface — commonly for a planet , moon, or asteroid — created from terrain elevation data....
was available, the three dimensional images covering some areas of high relief are not at all accurate, but most mountain areas are now well mapped. The underlying digital elevation model has been placed 3 arc seconds
Minute of arc
A minute of arc, arcminute, or minute of angle , is a unit of angular measurement equal to one sixtieth of one degree. In turn, a second of arc or arcsecond is one sixtieth of one minute of arc....
too far north and up to 3 arc seconds too far west. This means that some steep mountain ridges incorrectly appear to have shadows extending over onto their south facing sides. Some high resolution images have also been misplaced: an example is the image covering Annapurna
Annapurna
Annapurna is a section of the Himalayas in north-central Nepal that includes Annapurna I, thirteen additional peaks over and 16 more over ....
, which is misplaced by about 12 arc seconds. Elevation data was recently updated to 10-meter (1/3-arc-second) resolution for much of the United States from the previous 30-meter (1-arc-second) resolution.
In some areas, local government jurisdictions have submitted more finely gridded terrain models through the Map Content Partners program. In March 2010, the County of Marin, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge by San Francisco, California, published a 40 cm gridded terrain surface of 1425 km2 through the program.
The "Measure" function shows that the length of equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....
is about 40,030.24 km, giving an error of −0.112% compared with the actual value of 40,075.02 km Earth; for the meridional
Meridian (geography)
A meridian is an imaginary line on the Earth's surface from the North Pole to the South Pole that connects all locations along it with a given longitude. The position of a point along the meridian is given by its latitude. Each meridian is perpendicular to all circles of latitude...
circumference, it shows a length of about 39,963.13 km, also giving an error of −0.112% compared with the actual value of 40,007.86 km.
On December 16, 2007, most of Antarctica was updated to a 15 m resolution using imagery from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (1 m resolution images of some parts of Antarctica were added in June 2007); however, the Arctic polar ice cap
Polar ice cap
A polar ice cap is a high latitude region of a planet or natural satellite that is covered in ice. There are no requirements with respect to size or composition for a body of ice to be termed a polar ice cap, nor any geological requirement for it to be over land; only that it must be a body of...
is completely absent from the current version of Google Earth, as are waves in the oceans. The geographic North Pole
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...
is found hovering over the Arctic Ocean and the tiling system produces artifacts
Visual artifact
Visual artifacts are anomalies during visual representation of e.g. digital graphics and imagery.-Examples in digital graphics:* Image quality factors, different types of visual artifacts...
near the poles as the tiles become 'infinitely' small and rounding errors accumulate.
Cloud cover and shadows can make it difficult or impossible to see details in some land areas, including the shadow side of mountains.
Some parts of the world have still not been photographed. Very low resolution photos or false color photos indicate that the area has not been photographed. On Google Earth 6.0 it is easy to see areas that are not photographed by simply clicking the Historical imagery option on.
Controversy and criticism
The software has been criticized by a number of special interest groupSpecial Interest Group
A Special Interest Group is a community with an interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to effect or to produce solutions within their particular field, and may communicate, meet, and organize conferences...
s, including national officials, as being an invasion of privacy
Invasion of privacy
United States privacy law embodies several different legal concepts. One is the invasion of privacy, a tort based in common law allowing an aggrieved party to bring a lawsuit against an individual who unlawfully intrudes into his or her private affairs, discloses his or her private information,...
and even posing a threat to national security
National security
National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...
. The typical argument is that the software provides information about military or other critical installations that could be used by terrorists.
- Former PresidentPresident of IndiaThe President of India is the head of state and first citizen of India, as well as the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces. President of India is also the formal head of all the three branches of Indian Democracy - Legislature, Executive and Judiciary...
of IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
APJ Abdul Kalam expressed concern over the availability of high-resolution pictures of sensitive locations in IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. Google subsequently agreed to censor such sites. - The Indian Space Research OrganisationIndian Space Research OrganisationThe Indian Space Research Organisation is an independent Indian governmental agency established in 1969 for the research and development of vehicles and activities for the exploration of space within and outside of Earth’s atmosphere. Headquartered in Bangalore...
said Google Earth poses a security threat to India, and seeks dialogue with Google officials. - The South KoreaSouth KoreaThe Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
n government expressed concern that the software offers images of the presidential palace and various military installations that could possibly be used by hostile neighbor North KoreaNorth KoreaThe Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
. - In 2006, one user spotted a large topographical replica in a remote region of China. The model is a small-scale (1/500) version of the Karakoram Mountain RangeKarakoramThe Karakoram, or Karakorum , is a large mountain range spanning the borders between Pakistan, India and China, located in the regions of Gilgit-Baltistan , Ladakh , and Xinjiang region,...
, currently under the control of China but claimed by India. When later confirmed as a replica of this region, spectators began entertaining military implications. - In 2006, Google Earth began offering detailed images of classified areas in IsraelIsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. The images showed Israel Defense ForcesIsrael Defense ForcesThe Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
bases, including secret Israeli Air ForceIsraeli Air ForceThe Israeli Air Force is the air force of the State of Israel and the aerial arm of the Israel Defense Forces. It was founded on May 28, 1948, shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence...
facilities, Israel's Arrow missile defense system, military headquarters and Defense Ministry compound in Tel AvivTel AvivTel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
, a top-secret power station near AshkelonAshkelonAshkelon is a coastal city in the South District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age...
, and the Negev Nuclear Research CenterNegev Nuclear Research CenterThe Negev Nuclear Research Center is an Israeli nuclear installation located in the Negev desert, about thirteen kilometers to the south-east of the city of Dimona. The purpose of Dimona is widely assumed to be the manufacturing of nuclear weapons, and the majority of defense experts have...
. Also shown was the alleged headquarters of the MossadMossadThe Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....
, Israel's foreign intelligence service, whose location is highly classified. - Operators of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactorOpen-pool Australian lightwater reactorOPAL is a 20 megawatt pool-type nuclear research reactor that was officially opened on 20 April 2007 at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Research Establishment at Lucas Heights, located in South Sydney, Australia.The main reactor uses are:* Irradiation of target...
in SydneySydneySydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, New South WalesNew South WalesNew South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia asked Google to censor high resolution pictures of the facility. However, they later withdrew the request. - In July 2007, it was reported that a new Chinese NavyPeople's Liberation Army NavyThe People's Liberation Army Navy is the naval branch of the People's Liberation Army , the military of the People's Republic of China. Until the early 1990s, the navy performed a subordinate role to the PLA Land Forces. Since then, it has undergone rapid modernisation...
Jin-class nuclearNuclear weaponA nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
ballistic missileBallistic missileA ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...
submarineSubmarineA submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
was photographed at the Xiaopingdao Submarine Base south of DalianDalianDalian is a major city and seaport in the south of Liaoning province, Northeast China. It faces Shandong to the south, the Yellow Sea to the east and the Bohai Sea to the west and south. Holding sub-provincial administrative status, Dalian is the southernmost city of Northeast China and China's...
. - HamasHamasHamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
and the al-Aqsa Martyrs' BrigadesAl-Aqsa Martyrs' BrigadesThe al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades is a coalition of Palestinian nationalist militias in the West Bank. The group's name refers to the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem...
have reportedly used Google Earth to plan Qassam rocketQassam rocketThe Qassam rocket is a simple steel artillery rocket developed and deployed by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas. Three models have been produced and used between 2001 and 2011....
attacks on Israel from Gaza (See: List of Qassam rocket attacks.) - The lone surviving gunman involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks admitted to using Google Earth to familiarise himself with the locations of buildings used in the attacks.
- Michael FintonMichael FintonMichael C. Finton, also known as Talib Islam , a convert to Islam and a part-time cook at a fish and chicken restaurant, attempted to bomb the Paul Findley Federal Building and the adjacent offices of Congressman Aaron Schock in downtown Springfield, Illinois, on September 24, 2009...
used Google Earth in planning his attempted September 24, 2009, bombing of the Paul Findley Federal Building and the adjacent offices of Congressman Aaron SchockAaron SchockAaron Schock is the United States Representative for , serving since 2009. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district is based in Peoria and includes part of Springfield. At the age of , Schock is currently the youngest U.S. representative and the first member of the U.S. Congress born...
in Springfield, IllinoisSpringfield, IllinoisSpringfield is the third and current capital of the US state of Illinois and the county seat of Sangamon County with a population of 117,400 , making it the sixth most populated city in the state and the second most populated Illinois city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area...
. - In 2009, Google superimposed old woodblock prints of maps from 18th and 19th century JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
over Japan today. These maps marked areas inhabited by the burakuminBurakuminare a Japanese social minority group. The burakumin are one of the main minority groups in Japan, along with the Ainu of Hokkaidō, the Ryukyuans of Okinawa and Japanese residents of Korean and Chinese descent....
caste, who were considered "non-humans" for their "dirty" occupations, including leather tanning and butchery. Descendants of members of the burakumin caste still face discrimination today and many Japanese people feared that some would use these areas, labeled etamura (穢多村, translation: "village of an abundance of defilement""), to target current inhabitants of them. These maps are still visible on Google Earth, but with the label removed where necessary. - Thieves in the United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
use Google Earth to find Church of EnglandChurch of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
churches with leadLeadLead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
roofs in order to steal the lead and sell it as scrap (at $2,400 per metric tonne) on the metals market.
| Country | By Whom | Reason | Since When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iran | US government export restrictions | 2007 | ||
| Morocco | Maroc Telecom, the most popular service provider | Unknown | 2006 | |
| Sudan | US government export restrictions | 2007 |
Some citizens may express concerns over aerial information depicting their properties and residences being disseminated freely. As relatively few jurisdictions actually guarantee the individual's right to privacy, as opposed to the state's right to secrecy, this is an evolving but minor point.
Perhaps aware of these critiques, for a time, Google had Area 51
Area 51
Area 51 is a military base, and a remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base. It is located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States, 83 miles north-northwest of downtown Las Vegas. Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large military airfield...
(which is highly visible and easy to find) in Nevada as a default placemark when Google Earth is first installed.
As a result of pressure from the United States government, the residence of the Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
at Number One Observatory Circle
Number One Observatory Circle
Number One Observatory Circle is the official residence of the Vice President of the United States.Located on the northeast grounds of the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, the house was built in 1893 for its superintendent. The Chief of Naval Operations liked the house so much...
was obscured through pixelization
Pixelization
Pixelization is a video- and image-editing technique in which an image is blurred by displaying part or all of it at a markedly lower resolution. It is primarily used for censorship...
in Google Earth and Google Maps
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
in 2006, but has since been lifted. The usefulness of this downgrade is questionable, as high-resolution photos and aerial surveys of the property are readily available on the Internet elsewhere. Capitol Hill used to also be pixelized in this way, but this was lifted. The Royal Stables in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
used to be pixelized as well, but was partially lifted. If one zooms in too close to the Stables, it is still pixelized.
Critics have expressed concern over the willingness of Google to cripple their dataset to cater to special interests, believing that intentionally obscuring any land goes against its stated goal of letting the user "point and zoom to any place on the planet that you want to explore".
In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, critics have also argued that Google Earth has led to the vandalism of private property, highlighting the graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
of a penis
Penis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
being drawn on the roof of a house near Hungerford
Hungerford
Hungerford is a market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, 9 miles west of Newbury. It covers an area of and, according to the 2001 census, has a population of 5,559 .- Geography :...
, on the roof of Yarm School
Yarm School
Yarm School is a fee-paying Public School situated within the market town of Yarm, North Yorkshire, England.-Situation:The senior school is situated in the Friarage buildings and grounds, on the River Tees, at the southern end of the Georgian market town of Yarm...
at Stockton on Tees and on the playing fields of a school in Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
as examples of this.
In Hazleton
Hazleton, Pennsylvania
Hazleton is a city in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 25,340 at the 2010 census, an increase of 8.6% from the 2000 census count .-Greater Hazleton:...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, media attention and critics focused on Google Earth once more because of the defacing of the Hazleton Area Highschool Football field. Grass was removed to create the image of a penis approximately 35 yards long and 20 yards wide.
Recent versions of Google Earth require a software component running in the background that will automatically download and install updates. Several users expressed concerns that there is not an easy way to disable this updater, as it currently runs without the permission of the user.
Copyright
Currently, every image created from Google Earth using satellite data provided by Google Earth is a copyrightCopyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
ed map. Any derivative from Google Earth is made from copyrighted data which, under United States Copyright Law
United States copyright law
The copyright law of the United States governs the legally enforceable rights of creative and artistic works under the laws of the United States.Copyright law in the United States is part of federal law, and is authorized by the U.S. Constitution...
, may not be used except under the licenses Google provides. Google allows non-commercial
Non-commercial
Non-commercial refers to an activity or entity that does not in some sense involve commerce, at least relative to similar activities that do have a commercial objective or emphasis...
personal use of the images (e.g. on a personal website or blog) as long as copyrights and attributions are preserved.
By contrast, images created with NASA's globe software World Wind
NASA World Wind
World Wind is an open-source virtual globe developed by NASA and the open source community for use on personal computers. Old versions need Microsoft Windows but the more recent Java version, , is cross platform and provides a suite of . The World Wind Java version was awarded in November 2009...
use The Blue Marble
The Blue Marble
The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft at a distance of about ....
, Landsat or USGS layer, each of which is a terrain layer in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
. Works created by an agency of the United States government are public domain at the moment of creation. This means that those images can be freely modified, redistributed and used for commercial
Commerce
While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
purposes.
Layers
Google Earth also features many layers as a source for information on businesses and points of interest, as well as showcasing the contents of many communities, such as WikipediaWikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, Panoramio
Panoramio
Panoramio is a geolocation-oriented photo sharing website. Accepted photos uploaded to the site can be accessed as a layer in Google Earth and Google Maps, with new photos being added at the end of every month. The site's goal is to allow Google Earth users to learn more about a given area by...
and YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
. Google updates with new layers often. Many Google Earth layers, such as Panoramio and Google Earth Community layers, are updated daily with entries from the respective websites.
Borders and labels
Contains borders for countries/provinces and shows placemarks for cities and towns.- BorderBorderBorders define geographic boundaries of political entities or legal jurisdictions, such as governments, sovereign states, federated states and other subnational entities. Some borders—such as a state's internal administrative borders, or inter-state borders within the Schengen Area—are open and...
s: Marks international borders with a thick yellow line, 1st level administrative borders (generally provinceProvinceA province is a territorial unit, almost always an administrative division, within a country or state.-Etymology:The English word "province" is attested since about 1330 and derives from the 13th-century Old French "province," which itself comes from the Latin word "provincia," which referred to...
s and states) with a lavenderLavender (color)Lavender is a pale tint of violet. It applies particularly to the color of the flower of the same name. The web color called lavender is displayed at right—it matches the color of the very palest part of the lavender flower; however, the more saturated color shown below as floral lavender more...
line, and 2nd level administrative borders (countiesCountyA county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...
) with a cyanCyanCyan from , transliterated: kýanos, meaning "dark blue substance") may be used as the name of any of a number of colors in the blue/green range of the spectrum. In reference to the visible spectrum cyan is used to refer to the color obtained by mixing equal amounts of green and blue light or the...
line. Coastlines appear as a thin yellow line. Displays names of countriesCountryA country is a region legally identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with a previously...
, 1st level administrative areas, and islands. - Labels: Displays labels for large bodies of water, such as oceans, seas, and bays, and populated places.
Roads
Displays available road networks. The colors and signs displayed vary depending on the type of roadway.- Limited-accessLimited-access roadA limited-access road known by various terms worldwide, including limited-access highway, dual-carriageway and expressway, is a highway or arterial road for high-speed traffic which has many or most characteristics of a controlled-access highway , including limited or no access to adjacent...
freeways and tollways that are part of widespread networks such as the International E-road networkInternational E-road networkThe international E-road network is a numbering system for roads in Europe developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe . The network is numbered from E 1 up and its roads cross national borders...
, United States Interstate HighwaysInterstate Highway SystemThe Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, , is a network of limited-access roads including freeways, highways, and expressways forming part of the National Highway System of the United States of America...
and many other national road networks are represented by orange lines. - Other freeways are marked with pale orange lines.
- Some roads in Japan are indigo.
- Other important roads, generally those most travelled, highest capacity, or bearing a road numberRoad numberA road number is often assigned to a stretch of public roadway. The number chosen is often dependent on the type of road, with numbers differentiating between interstates, motorways, arterial thoroughfares, two-lane roads, and so forth.-United Kingdom:...
, are labeled with yellow lines. - All other roads are labeled white.
- Some pedestrianPedestrianA pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In some communities, those traveling using roller skates or skateboards are also considered to be pedestrians. In modern times, the term mostly refers to someone walking on a road or footpath, but this was not the case...
walkways and private roadPrivate roadA private road is a road owned and maintained by a private individual, organization, or company rather than by a government.Consequently, unauthorized use of the road may be considered trespassing, and some of the usual rules of the road may not apply...
s are signified by transparentTransparency and translucencyIn the field of optics, transparency is the physical property of allowing light to pass through a material; translucency only allows light to pass through diffusely. The opposite property is opacity...
white lines, especially when greatly resembling a road intended for public automotive traffic.
Buildings in 3D
Shows many 3D3D modeling
In 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical representation of any three-dimensional surface of object via specialized software. The product is called a 3D model...
computer
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
building model
Building model
Building models are scale models of structures. They are commonly used in model railroading as well as wargaming and diorama making. Architectural models are also made to demonstrate and promote buildings before they are constructed....
s in many cities, in these styles:
- Photorealistic: Shows many buildings in a realistic style, with more complex polygons and surface images.
- Gray: Low-detail models of city buildings designed for computers that may not have the capability of showing the photorealistic models.
Any real world building can be created for Google Earth via a number of avenues:
- Users can create their own 3D buildings with Building MakerGoogle Building MakerGoogle Building Maker is a web application that allows users to build three-dimensional buildings for inclusion in Google Earth. Buildings are created using simple three-dimensional shapes combined with aerial photos...
. This browser based tool allows users to match 'boxes' to aerial imagery of certain cities. Low learning curve resulting in lower quality 3D buildings. - Users can download SketchUpSketchUpSketchUp is a 3D modeling program marketed by Google and designed for architectural, civil, and mechanical engineers as well as filmmakers, game developers,...
a 3D modeling application that allows users to create detailed digital representations of real world buildings. Provided the models meet Google's criteria, they can then be uploaded to the 3D warehouse and accepted to Google Earth - There are now several companies, certified by Google, that provide a service creating and maintaining 3D buildings for customers. These companies generally provide high detail models.
In 2009, in a unique collaboration between Google and the Museo del Prado
Museo del Prado
The Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, the museum selected 14 of its most important paintings to be photographed and displayed at the ultrahigh resolution of 14,000 megapixels inside the 3D version of the Prado in Google Earth and Google Maps
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
.
Google Street View
Shows placemarks with 360 degree panoramic views of streets of many cities in Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, the United States, and recently Portugal, BrazilBrazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, Switzerland, Canada, Mexico, Sweden, Norway, South Africa and Finland.
Weather
- Clouds - Displays cloud cover based on data from both geostationaryGeostationary orbitA geostationary orbit is a geosynchronous orbit directly above the Earth's equator , with a period equal to the Earth's rotational period and an orbital eccentricity of approximately zero. An object in a geostationary orbit appears motionless, at a fixed position in the sky, to ground observers...
and low Earth-orbitingLow Earth orbitA low Earth orbit is generally defined as an orbit within the locus extending from the Earth’s surface up to an altitude of 2,000 km...
satelliteSatelliteIn the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
s. The clouds appear at their calculated elevation, determined by measuring the cloud top temperature relative to surface temperature. - Radar - Displays weather radarWeather radarWeather radar, also called weather surveillance radar and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, estimate its type . Modern weather radars are mostly pulse-Doppler radars, capable of detecting the motion of rain droplets in addition to the...
data provided by weather.comThe Weather ChannelThe Weather Channel is a US cable and satellite television network since May 2, 1982, that broadcasts weather forecasts and weather-related news, along with entertainment programming related to weather 24 hours a day...
and Weather Services International, updating every 5–6 minutes. - Conditions and Forecast - Displays local temperatures and weather conditions. Clicking on an indicator displays a 2 Day Forecast (Example: Monday Morning, Monday Night, Tuesday Morning, Tuesday Night) forecast provided by weather.com.
- Information - Clicking Information allows users to further read up on where Google Earth gets weather information.
Gallery
- Ancient RomeAncient RomeAncient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
: Launched by Google on November 12, 2008. - Discovery Networks: Shows geographical information from the Discovery ChannelDiscovery ChannelDiscovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
. - European Space AgencyEuropean Space AgencyThe European Space Agency , established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states...
: Shows many satellite images taken of Earth. - GigapanGigapanGigaPan is a collaborative project between Carnegie Mellon University and NASA Ames Intelligent Systems Division's Robotics Group with support from Google...
Photos: Images from Google's Gigapan project. - Gigapxl Photos: Photographs taken using Gigapxl.
- Google Book SearchGoogle Book SearchGoogle Books is a service from Google that searches the full text of books that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October...
: An application of the Google Book search in Google Earth. - Google Earth Community: User developed content hosted on Google's official Google Earth Community Forum.
- Google NewsGoogle NewsGoogle News is a free news aggregator provided by Google Inc, selecting recent items from thousands of publications by an automatic aggregation algorithm....
: Shows news stories from many worldwide news sources. - NASANASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
: A showcase of many satellite images, overlays and features from NASA. - National Geographic magazine: Shows many features from the National Geographic Magazine.
- New York Times: A collection of news stories from the popular New York City newspaper.
- Rumsey Historical Maps: Shows a collection of historic maps, dating back to the 1600s.
- TravelTravelTravel is the movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. 'Travel' can also include relatively short stays between successive movements.-Etymology:...
and TourismTourismTourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
- 100% Pure New Zealand
- EgyptEgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
Tourism - Japan Tourism
- KoreaKoreaKorea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
Tourism - KyotoKyotois a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
Tourism - South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
Tourism - Turn Here: City Video Guides
- Walt Disney World ResortWalt Disney World ResortWalt Disney World Resort , is the world's most-visited entertaimental resort. Located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida ; approximately southwest of Orlando, Florida, United States, the resort covers an area of and includes four theme parks, two water parks, 23 on-site themed resort hotels Walt...
- Trimble Outdoor Trips: A collection of hiking trails with recordings.
- Volcanoes
- Webcams.travel: A collection of webcams around the world
- YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
: A collection of popular videos on YouTube.
Global awareness
A collection of services spreading global awareness. The layer was provided by Google Earth OutreachGoogle Earth Outreach
Google Earth Outreach is Google's program for donating and supporting non-profit organizations spreading the knowledge of global awareness. Google Earth Outreach offers online training on using Google Earth and Google Maps for public education on issues affecting local regions or the entire...
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- AppalachianAppalachian MountainsThe Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
Mountaintop removal - ARKiveARKiveARKive is a global initiative with the mission of "promoting the conservation of the world's threatened species, through the power of wildlife imagery", which it does by locating and gathering films, photographs and audio recordings of the world's species into a centralised digital archive. Its...
: Endangered speciesEndangered speciesAn endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters... - Earthwatch Expeditions
- Fair Trade CertifiedFair Trade Certified MarkThe Fair Trade Certified Mark is a fair trade certification mark used in Canada and in the United States. It appears on products as an independent guarantee that disadvantaged producers in the developing world are getting a better deal...
- Global Heritage FundGlobal Heritage FundGlobal Heritage Fund is a non-profit organization that operates internationally. Its mission statement says that it exists to protect and preserve significant and endangered cultural heritage sites in the developing world, through scientific excellence and community development...
- GreenpeaceGreenpeaceGreenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
- Jane GoodallJane GoodallDame Jane Morris Goodall, DBE , is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace. Considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her 45-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National...
's Gombe ChimpanzeeChimpanzeeChimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
Blog - The Earth from Above with Goodplanet
- The Elders: Every Human Has Rights
- UNDPUnited Nations Development ProgrammeThe United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations' global development network. It advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP operates in 177 countries, working with nations on their own solutions to...
: Millennium Development Goals Monitor - UNEPUnited Nations Environment ProgrammeThe United Nations Environment Programme coordinates United Nations environmental activities, assisting developing countries in implementing environmentally sound policies and practices. It was founded as a result of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972 and has its...
: Atlas of our Changing Environment - UnicefUnited Nations Children's FundUnited Nations Children's Fund was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946, to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II...
: Water and SanitationSanitationSanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes. Hazards can be either physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health problems are human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic... - USHMMUnited States Holocaust Memorial MuseumThe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history...
: World is Witness - War in DarfurWar in DarfurThe Darfur Conflict was a guerrilla conflict or civil war centered on the Darfur region of Sudan. It began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and Justice and Equality Movement groups in Darfur took up arms, accusing the Sudanese government of oppressing non-Arab Sudanese in...
- WaterAidWaterAidWaterAid is an international non-profit organisation set up as a response to the UN International Drinking Water & Sanitation decade . WaterAid is dedicated to helping people escape the poverty and disease caused by living without safe water and sanitation. It is based in London, England and was...
- WWFWorld Wide Fund for NatureThe World Wide Fund for Nature is an international non-governmental organization working on issues regarding the conservation, research and restoration of the environment, formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States...
Conservation Projects
Ocean
- Animal Tracking
- ARKiveARKiveARKive is a global initiative with the mission of "promoting the conservation of the world's threatened species, through the power of wildlife imagery", which it does by locating and gathering films, photographs and audio recordings of the world's species into a centralised digital archive. Its...
: Endangered Ocean Species - BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Earth - Census of Marine LifeCensus of Marine LifeThe Census of Marine Life was a global network of researchers in more than 80 nations engaged in a 10-year scientific initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans...
- Cousteau Ocean World
- Explore the Ocean
- Marine Protected AreaMarine Protected AreaMarine Protected Areas, like any protected area, are regions in which human activity has been placed under some restrictions in the interest of conserving the natural environment, it's surrounding waters and the occupant ecosystems, and any cultural or historical resources that may require...
- National Geographic
- Magazine Quiz
- Ocean Atlas
- Ocean Expeditions
- Ocean Sports
- Dive Spots
- Kite Surfing Spots
- Surf Spots
- ShipwreckShipwreckA shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....
s - State of the Ocean
- Marie TharpMarie TharpMarie Tharp was a geologist and oceanographic cartographer who, along with her colleague Bruce Heezen, mapped the ocean floor including the Mid-Oceanic Ridges, a line of undersea mountains.-Biography:...
Historical Map - Underwater Features
Sky layers
Layers for Google SkyGoogle Sky
Google Sky is a feature for Google's Google Earth and an online sky/outer space viewer at www.google.com/sky. It was created on August 27, 2007...
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- Welcome to Sky: An introduction to the Sky mode.
- Current Sky Events
- EarthSky Podcasts
- Hubblecast
- StarDate by the University of Texas
- VOEventNET
- Our Solar System: Shows locations, orbits and information of the Solar SystemSolar SystemThe Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
. - Backyard AstronomyAstronomyAstronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
: Shows information about constellationConstellationIn modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
s and other space sights visible from a backyard telescopeTelescopeA telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...
. - Featured Observatories
- HubbleHubble Space TelescopeThe Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 1990 and remains in operation. A 2.4 meter aperture telescope in low Earth orbit, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared...
Showcase - SpitzerSpitzerSpitzer may refer to:* Andre Spitzer, Israel's 1972 Summer Olympics fencing coach and victim of the Munich massacre* Bernard Spitzer, father of Eliot Spitzer* Eliot Spitzer, 54th Governor of the State of New York...
InfraredInfraredInfrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...
Showcase - GALEXGALEXThe Galaxy Evolution Explorer is an orbiting ultraviolet space telescope launched on April 28, 2003. A Pegasus rocket placed the craft into a nearly circular orbit at an altitude of and an inclination to the Earth's equator of 29 degrees....
UltravioletUltravioletUltraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays, in the range 10 nm to 400 nm, and energies from 3 eV to 124 eV...
Showcase - Chandra X-RayChandra X-ray ObservatoryThe Chandra X-ray Observatory is a satellite launched on STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. It was named in honor of Indian-American physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar who is known for determining the maximum mass for white dwarfs. "Chandra" also means "moon" or "luminous" in Sanskrit.Chandra...
Showcase - WMAP MicrowaveMicrowaveMicrowaves, a subset of radio waves, have wavelengths ranging from as long as one meter to as short as one millimeter, or equivalently, with frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz. This broad definition includes both UHF and EHF , and various sources use different boundaries...
Showcase - IRASIRASThe Infrared Astronomical Satellite was the first-ever space-based observatory to perform a survey of the entire sky at infrared wavelengths....
Infrared Sky
- Hubble
- Education Center
- CelestronCelestronCelestron is a company that manufactures and imports telescopes, binoculars, spotting scopes, microscopes, and accessories for their products.-Origins and History:...
SkyScout AudioSoundSound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of... - VirtualVirtualThe term virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and also, differing denotations.The term has been defined in philosophy as "that which is not real" but may display the salient qualities of the real....
TourismTourismTourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a... - User's Guide to Galaxies
- Life of a Star
- Celestron
- Historical Sky Maps
- Rumsey Star Maps
- Hevelius Constellations
- Sky Community: Posted KMLKMLKML or kml may refer to:* Kamileroi Airport , Queensland, Australia* Keyhole Markup Language, an XML geospatial data file format...
files in the Sky forumInternet forumAn Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
in the Google Earth Community.
Mars layers
- Featured Satellite Images
- Global Maps
- Place Names
- Mars Gallery
- A Traveler's Guide to Mars
- Rovers and Landers
- Spacecraft Imagery
See also
- BhuvanBhuvanBhuvan, , is a software application which allows users to explore a 3D representation of the surface of the Earth. The browser is specifically tailored to view India, offering the highest resolution in this region. A beta version was launched on 12 August 2009.- Overview :ISRO launched the beta...
- Bing Maps for EnterpriseBing Maps for EnterpriseBing Maps Platform is a geospatial mapping platform produced by Microsoft. It allows developers to create applications that layer location-relevant data on top of licensed map imagery...
(previously Microsoft Virtual Earth) - GeowebGeowebThe Geospatial Web or Geoweb is a relatively new term that implies the merging of geographical information with the abstract information that currently dominates the Internet...
- KMLKMLKML or kml may refer to:* Kamileroi Airport , Queensland, Australia* Keyhole Markup Language, an XML geospatial data file format...
- Marble (KDE)Marble (KDE)Marble is a virtual globe that allows the user to choose among the Earth, the Moon, Venus, Mars and other planets. It is free software under the terms of the GNU LGPL, developed by KDE and the free-software / open-source communities for use on personal computers running a Qt4-compatible operating...
- Monster MilktruckMonster MilktruckMonster Milktruck is a freeware video game played through the Internet using the Google Earth engine. This program can be played on certain operating systems and/or on certain browsers. The Google Earth plug-in is required for proper use of the software. However, the plug-in can be installed...
, a game played using Google Earth technology - NASA World WindNASA World WindWorld Wind is an open-source virtual globe developed by NASA and the open source community for use on personal computers. Old versions need Microsoft Windows but the more recent Java version, , is cross platform and provides a suite of . The World Wind Java version was awarded in November 2009...
- Oracle SpatialOracle SpatialOracle Spatial forms a separately-licensed option component of the Oracle Database. Oracle Spatial aids users in managing geographic and location-data in a native type within an Oracle database, potentially supporting a wide range of applications — from automated mapping/facilities-management and...
- OrthophotomapOrthophotomapOrthophotomaps are satellite or aerial photos geo-referenced as maps. For example, Google Earth–displayed information is made up of orthophotomap picture tiles.-External links:* *...
- Planet GooglePlanet GooglePlanet Google is a business and management book by author Randall Stross, also author of eBoys. The book is an insight on Google, a multinational public cloud computing, Internet search, and advertising technologies corporation It offers information about the secretive Googleplex, the Google...
, a book by Randall Stross about Google and its products, including Earth. - Web mappingWeb mappingWeb mapping is the process of designing, implementing, generating and delivering maps on the World Wide Web and its product. While web mapping primarily deals with technological issues, web cartography additionally studies theoretic aspects: the use of web maps, the evaluation and optimization of...
Image providers
- CNESCNESThe is the French government space agency . Established under President Charles de Gaulle in 1961, its headquarters are located in central Paris and it is under the supervision of the French Ministries of Defence and Research...
- DigitalGlobeDigitalGlobeDigitalGlobe, of Longmont, Colorado, USA, is a commercial vendor of space imagery and geospatial content, and operator of civilian remote sensing spacecraft...
— the provider of high resolution imagery to Google Earth - EarthSatEarthSatEarth Satellite Corporation was an early pioneer in the commercial use of Earth observation satellites. Founded in 1969, EarthSat was first headquartered in Washington, D.C. and later moved its offices to Bethesda, Maryland and finally to Rockville, Maryland in the late 1980s. In 2001, EarthSat...
- First Base Solutions
- GeoEye-1 (ORBVIEW-3's successor)
- GlobeXplorerGlobeXplorerGlobeXplorer was an online spatial data company that compiled and distributed aerial photos, satellite imagery, and map data from their online spatial archives...
- IKONOSIKONOSIKONOS is a commercial earth observation satellite, and was the first to collect publicly available high-resolution imagery at 1- and 4-meter resolution. It offers multispectral and panchromatic imagery. The IKONOS launch was called by John E. Pike “one of the most significant developments in...
(ORBVIEW-2 is successor) - Pictometry International
- Spot ImageSpot ImageSpot Image, a public limited company created in 1982 by the French Space Agency, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales , the IGN, and Space Manufacturers is a subsidiary of EADS Astrium...
Official and related sites
- Google LatLong - News and notes by the Google Earth and Maps team
Unofficial guides and tips
- Google Earth Blog: Google Earth news, tips, and updates
- Google Sightseeing - Guide to interesting and unusual sights
- Ogle Earth - Google Earth news site charting innovative uses and political implications of Google Earth
- Google Earth in Education - A guided tour by a teacher for teachers, students and all.
- Google Earth 2 Mapsource Edit GPS tracks in Mapsource and Google Earth.
- Google Earth Germany: Germany's Google Earth Portal
Placemarks and overlays
- North Korea Uncovered - An extensive mapping of North Korea's economic, cultural, political, and military infrastructures, featured in the Wall Street Journal.
- Google Earth Hacks - A collection of over 25,000 files for use with Google Earth
- King's College London's Collection of KML databases
- STScI's community contributions to Sky website
- Google Earth Anomalies- Satellite imagery of documented, scientific anomaly sites including mound sites and unexplained circular features via Google Earth
Tools
- GeoServer - Server to generate KML from Shapefiles, ArcSDE, Oracle, PostGIS, MySQL, GeoTiff, ArcGrid, with support for Network links, superoverlays, time and custom pop-ups.
- GPSVisualizer - Will convert GPS data for use in Google Earth.
- GoogleEarthToolbox - Matlab & Octave functions that output KML.
- PlaceSurf - Dynamic KML file generator