A Gallery Of Top Secret Australian Military Sites As Seen By Google Earth

Google Earth via news.com.au

Secret Australian Military Bases Revealed By Google Maps [PHOTOS] -- Business Insider

As an ode to Australian and British foreign and defense officials meeting in Australia today to discuss stronger military ties, Australian news site NEWS.com.au has compiled a gallery of top secret Australian military sites as seen by Google Earth.

Previously aviation historians have discovered that the U.S. flew highly classified Global Hawk spy drone missions from a base in South Australia, but we've never seen such a comprehensive look at the secret installations where Australia does classified work and collaborates with other governments.  
 
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My Comment: It appears that you cannot keep a secret nowadays.

Google's 'Eye On The World' Releases Gallery Of Best Shots

Space Shuttle Endeavour on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida, awaiting launch to the International Space Station - its last flight

Google's 'Eye On The World' Releases Hand-Picked Gallery Of Best Shots Of Our Changing Planet - As Seen From 425 Miles Up -- Daily Mail

The GeoEye-1 satellite is capable of capturing details as small as a dustbin as it hurtles past our planet at 17,000mph - and its creators have hand-picked views that show off the majesty of our planet.

GeoEye provides exclusive imagery to the Google Earth and Google Maps applications.

It captures around 270,000 square miles of Earth's surface ever day - an amount of geographical data equivalent to the size of the State of Texas.

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My Comment: The images are stunning.

With Google Earth No One Can Hide The Slums

With Google Earth, India Can No Longer Hide Its Shantytowns And "Slumdogs" -- Time/AP

SANGLI — Before Google Earth existed, the slums of Sangli, a city of 550,000 in southwestern India, was acknowledged on government maps by nothing more than some clumsily outlined, empty spaces. But then, from high in the sky, the eye of a satellite saw what no municipal geometer had taken the trouble to show: small islands of huts with dilapidated roofs spread throughout the city.

Thanks to the satellite images available on Google Earth, a full picture of these forgotten slums has emerged. They now have borders; they are mapped; they have an identity. And using these images, Shelter Associates, a Pune-based NGO, has begun rehabilitating the slums. For the first time in their lives, 3,900 families in Sangli are going to be moving into apartments.

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The Most Stunning Google Earth Pictures As Voted For By You

(Click on Image to Enlarge)
Plane graveyard: Scrapped jets line the dry and dusty ground in Arizona

Oh What A Wonderful World! The Most Stunning Google Earth Pictures As Voted For By You -- The Daily Mail

A website which combines Google Earth with a simple ratings system allows users to find the most beautiful or unusual places on our planet.

Stratocam, designed by ex-Dreamworks and Google employee Paul Rademacher, takes the outstanding aerial photography employed by the search engine's mapping service and allows visitors to his site to up-vote or down-vote user-submitted 'finds'.

The photographs are randomly selected from 'snapshots' taken by users, and after a few clicks it becomes apparent just how varied, pretty, and colourful our little blue-green marble is.

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My Comment: The Eiffel Tower looks cool.

Using Google Earth To Find Ancient Tombs In The Saudi Desert

Google Earth maps showed 1,977 structures built of basalt stone from the surrounding lava field in Jeddah, including various pendants, or circular mounds similar to collapsed tombs with processions of small stone piles branching out from them (A, B, C and D). Google Earth, Courtesy of David Kennedy/Journal of Archaeological Science

Thousands of Tombs in Saudi Desert Spotted From Space -- Live Science

Little is known about the archaeology of Saudi Arabia, as the government has historically forbid aerial photographs of the landscape and religious sensitivities have made access tricky. But Google Earth is changing that. Satellite images available via the Web-based 3-D map program show that large portions of the country hold a wealth of archaeological remains that predate Islam and may be several thousand years old.

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My Comment: Very impressive.

Using Google Earth To Find Archaeological Secrets

Google Earth Finds Saudi Arabia's Forbidden Archaeological Secrets -- The Telegraph

An armchair archaeologist has identified nearly 2,000 potentially important sites in Saudi Arabia using Google Earth, despite never having visited the country.

David Kennedy, a professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Western Australia, used Google Earth satellite maps to pinpoint 1,977 potential archaeological sites, including 1,082 teardrop shaped stone tombs.

"I've never been to Saudi Arabia," Dr Kennedy said. "It's not the easiest country to break into."

Dr Kennedy told New Scientist that he had verified the images showed actual archaeological sites by asking a friend working in the Kingdom to photograph the locations.

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My Comment: This is what i call using your brain.

Google Street View Captures Dead Bodies--Real Ones

Google Street View cars being readied for action in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
(Credit: CC Racum/Flickr)

From CNET News:

Whenever Google sends its Street View cameras to a new country, there is always more revealed than was anticipated.

And so is the case with the launch of Google Street View in Brazil.

Just a day after the service launched, up popped a couple of corpses. One, on the Avenida Presidente Vargas in Rio, the other in Belo Horizonte.

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Ancient Streetview: Now Google Can Take You To The Historic Pavements Of Pompeii And Stonehenge

Internet users can look at Pompeii's ancient streets from the comfort of their own homes

From The Daily Mail:

They are some of the most spectacular and unique places on the planet.

Now Google has taken tourism to the next level by allowing people from around the world to see monuments like Stonehenge, the streets of Pompeii and the remote landscapes of Antarctica from the comfort of their own living room.

But instead of the usual Google Streetview cars which have become a familiar sight on British streets, the new snaps were taken using a special Google tricycle.

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Video: Swoop Through the Real New York as Google Earth Meets Google Street View

From The Popular Science:

Google Earth has long allowed users to zoom in on textured, three-dimensional representations of cities, but the view was more or less limited to one angle: straight down. But the search giant has now mashed up its wealth of high-res Street View data with some existing city textures, making it possible to zoom right down to street level and take in a pedestrian's view in 3-D.

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Google Earth Reveals The Devastation In Haiti

On the left, buildings surrounding Haiti's capital are reduced to rubble, and the roof of the capital itself (at top) is crumbled. On the right, the capital building on Sept. 29, 2008. GeoEye Satellite Image

GeoEye Satellite Images: Haiti Before and After -- FOXNews.com

Before and after photographs from GeoEye's satellites shows the destruction to the capital and surrounding buildings in Port-au-Prince.

Before and after photographs from GeoEye's satellites shows the destruction to the National Palace and surrounding buildings in Port-au-Prince.

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More News On Satellite Pictures Over Haiti

Google Earth Reveals the Devastation in Haiti -- PC World
Google's Satellite Images of the Haiti Earthquake -- Time Magazine
Google Earth Reveals Extent of Haiti Quake Damage -- Sphere
Updated Google maps show Haiti devastation -- Toronto Star
First Satellite Map of Haiti Earthquake -- Science Daily

Thieves Use Google Earth To Find And Plunder Wineries' Solar Panels

Solar-Powered Vineyards "Just leave me in peace to tend to my wine" Langetwins Winery and Vineyards

From Popular Science:

Google's "do no evil" motto fails to halt heartless bandits.

Hot on the heels of news about Google's new energy venture comes this sorrowful tale about renewable energy. NPR reports on enterprising thieves who used Google Earth to do evil, and specifically to find California wineries with solar panels for the taking.

Yes, even the criminal underworld has embraced clean tech in the 21st century. Many thieves have reportedly used trucks to simply crash winery gates and steal up to 70 panels at a time. Local sheriff deputies speculate that online tools such as Google Earth might make it particularly easy to locate possible targets -- more than 400 panels worth over $1,000 each were stolen from Napa Valley vineyards in 2009.

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Augmented Google Earth Gets Real-Time People, Cars, Clouds

Real-Time Cars in Google Earth courtesy Georgia Institute of Technology

From Popular Science:

Researchers from Georgia Tech have devised methods to take real-time, real-world information and layer it onto Google Earth, adding dynamic information to the previously sterile Googlescape.

They use live video feeds (sometimes from many angles) to find the position and motion of various objects, which they then combine with behavioral simulations to produce real-time animations for Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth.

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India Launches Bhuvan, Rival To Google Earth

From Times Online:

India has launched a rival to Google Earth, the search engine's hugely popular satellite imagery service.

The online tool, dubbed Bhuvan (Sanskrit for Earth), has been developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). Its debut comes as India redoubles its efforts to reap profits from its 45-year-old state-sponsored space programme, criticised by some as a drain on a country where 700 million people live on $US2 a day or less.

The new site also follows in the slipstream of the country's first moon probe, Chandrayaan-1, which successfully reached the lunar surface last November.

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Google Earth Launches Interactive 3D Moon Atlas To Celebrate Apollo Landings

A view of the moon in the new feature of Google Earth 5.0

From The Daily Mail:

It’s exactly forty years ago today that Neil Armstrong took man’s first step on the moon.

And to mark the historic occasion Google Earth has taken the same leap in cyberspace.

The search engine leader today launched Moon in Google Earth, an interactive 3D atlas of the moon which allows space fans to take their very own virtual steps on the surface of our closest satellite.

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Four Years Of Google Earth, And What Has It Found?

Atlantis?: Courtesy Google

From Popular Science:

The virtual mapping tool, which turns four years old this month, has led to some amazing discoveries.

Google Earth in its current form went live in June 2005. In addition to allowing users to fly to their childhood homes, zoom in on potential vacation spots, and explore under the sea and atop the world's highest peaks, the virtual mapping software has proven instrumental in a number of scientific discoveries -- several in 2009 alone. Here's a look back at some of the highlights.

Any guesses on future Google Earth discoveries? Will Google Earth be an ever-more-important scientific tool in the future? Post in the comments.

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Google Earth Maps Out Discrimination Against Burakumin Caste In Japan

The map showed how old ghettos relate to the 21st-century streets

From Times Online:

A handful of innocent-looking antique maps, one offensive word and tens of thousands of offended “untouchables” have plunged Google into an unspoken class war that has raged in Japan for centuries.

Despite its ambition to be the cartographer of the internet age, the search engine has lumbered into one of the darkest corners of Japan — the bigotry of mainstream Japanese society towards the burakumin, the “filthy mob”, whose ancestors fell outside the caste system of the 17th-century samurai era.

By allowing old maps to be overlaid on satellite images of Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto on its Google Earth service, the search engine shows how the old ghettos relate to the 21st-century streets.

That, critics say, is perfect ammunition to hurt descendants of the people who lived there 400 years ago.

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Google Ocean Will Let Users Explore Shipwrecks And Reefs In The Deep Blue Sea

Watch footage of Google Ocean here...



From Daily Mail:

They cover two thirds of the globe and contain 80 per cent of all life.

Yet the oceans are such as mystery that we know more about the surface of the Moon than we do about the undersea world.

Now for the first time, aspiring Jacques Cousteaus will be able to explore every square mile of the sea from the comfort of their own homes.

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Google Satellite's Eye-Opening First Picture Promises Even Clearer Views Of Earth

Pin-sharp ... yet GeoEye-1's picture of Pennsylvania's Kutztown University
campus was taken from 423 miles above

From The Daily Mail:

Google's new satellite has beamed back its first picture, taken the moment the on-board camera was switched on.

The crystal-clear image promises to make the internet giant's photographic atlas, Google Earth, even more detailed.

The satellite went live for the first time two days ago following its launch last month from a U.S. air force base in California.

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Google Earth Is About To Get Better

Google is getting a new eye in the sky -- and as a bonus, its rainbow-colored
logo will be getting a ride on a rocket.

Google Earth To License New Satellite Imagery -- Zdnet

Google has agreed to license imagery for their mapping products from a satellite due to launch on September 4th. This new satellite can take detailed imagery for an area the size of New Mexico in one day. What does that mean? Well, you could get high resolution pan-sharpened imagery for the entire country in around 30 days. Impressive.

The level of detail will be approximately 50cm per pixel — that’s just under 20 inches. If you want to see what that looks like, take a look at this. Imagine having a Google Maps/Earth content that is this detailed, 100% complete and updated once a month — that’s powerful stuff.

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More News On Google Earth

Google to buy GeoEye satellite imagery -- CNET
Google Maps to get better satellite imagery from GeoEye -- Beta News
Google Teams Up With GeoEye-1 To Improve Its Services -- eFluxMedia
Google Launches Super-Spycam Into Space; Logo Goes Along for a Ride -- Wired Blogs