Google launched a new version of its Google Earth program today. It in addition to letting you zoom around the Earth, you can now explore the Sky! If you thought NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day was cool, imagine how cool it would be to fly into one of the Hubble Telescope’s photos. Many of these photos are geo-referenced to their locations so you can search for “Betelgeuse” just like you can search for “New York City.”

Hubble’s photos aren’t the only ones you can zoom into. Similar to Street View in Google Maps, this new version of Google Earth lets you zoom waaaaaaaaaaaay into Gigapxl photos in the normal Earth view. Turn on the Gigapxl layer under “Featured Content” in the “Layers” panel in the lower left-hand corner of the program and fly into high-resolution photos of Devil’s Tower or Seattle’s Space Needle. Both of these features are yet another neat way to better view and understand our world. It’ll be exciting to watch how the world will use these new tools!

Search for “Pillars of Creation” in Google Earth’s Sky Mode to view this photo in context.

Link to download Google Earth 4.2 (and link to Sally Ride video)
Link to Google LatLong Blog Post
Link to Gigapixl demo video

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See Also: Google Earth,Change how you see your World,Google Offers Green Vacation Advice,

This entry was posted by Jessica Pfund on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.