Blog Topic #8 -- What's Up with Google Earth?

Throughout my study of geography, I have come to love and appreciate a simple tool not many people probably use on a daily basis if at all.  That tool is a program created by Google called Google Earth.  When in Google Earth, you can fly around the globe, zoom in to cities or countries, create personal tours, and much more.

Google Earth was released in 2005 for use on people's personal computers.  It's images come from satellites that take pictures of the earth as they orbit.  Because of this, all images can be viewed in 3D thus allowing the globe to also be viewed in 3D as well.  This is beneficial because it can allow a person to view the world as it truly is, not altered as it would appear on a 2D map.  It also has numerous "layer" features that put information onto the globe such as borders, roads, clouds, and many other things. 

One such layer is known as 3D buildings.  This layer makes buildings, mountains, and anything with elevation appear 3D as they do in real life.  This can help also provide perspective into how the area looks in real life.  For example, one could turn on 3D buildings and zoom Washington D.C.,  The image they would receive would look like this...

Using this feature allows one to almost literally tour the location without being there!

As mentioned earlier, Google Earth can also give a better interpretation of what the world is really like.  It can increase perspective and make us think about the world in ways different than we do now.  For example, I always thought that the top of the globe contained a small land mass similar to Antarctica where the North Pole was located.  However, upon looking at this, my perspective was changed.

Apparently the top of the globe consists mainly of Greenland, a few islands, and water. There is no "North Antarctica" like I always imagined; how I saw the earth has changed and that is only in one region.  For example, I can also see that the quickest way from Canada to Sweden would be across the top of the globe, not around the world as we would imagine.  This image also shows just how close Alaska is to Russia, China, and Japan compared to the rest of the United States.  Places that seemed very far away have become closer or farther away by looking at one image.  What would happen if we looked at two?

Now we are looking at the bottom of the globe, at Antarctica.  This shows just how far away we are from Antarctica, but yet how close the tip of South America is to it.  I always imagined that Antarctica was this distant, very isolated piece of land from the rest of the world.  Now I see that it is closer to South America than New Zealand is to Australia!  In fact, it is only about 825 miles away (and yes, I used Google Earth to figure that out)!

So in conclusion, I greatly encourage anyone who has never seen or heard of Google Earth to try it out!  Before long, you'll become a huge fan of it as I have and might even stoop to spending your afternoon touring the globe virtually. (and yes, I have done this several times).  Besides being a great tool, it can help expand your view of our planet Earth.

Have Fun!