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August 22, 2007
Google Earth 4.2 Released - New Night Sky Feature
Last night, Google pushed out a new beta version of Google Earth called 4.2 (download it here). Read the announcement here. This version adds a substantial new feature (many are calling it Google Sky) which lets you not only look down on the Earth, but also look up at the night sky and see the starry heavens through the perspective of the world's most powerful telescopes. You simply click on a button at the top center of the new version and it switches to this new mode. Then, you can use the same type of navigation as always in Google Earth to zoom in and look at the stars, galaxies, nebulas, etc. of the universe. You also see a new set of layers on the bottom left which let you show/hide the constellations, and take tours of famous collections of amazing sights in the heavens like the Andromeda Galaxy, the Horsehead Nebula, the Ring Nebula, etc. Not only that, but you can use the same tools of Google Earth to placemark your own favorite places and share them with others. Simply click on the same control button in the upper center to switch back to Earth viewing.
This new version also has support for new features announced at the Google Developers Day last May for a new KML version called 2.2, and it hopefully addresses a number of problems from the last beta version of GE 4.1, which most of you have been using for the past few months.
I will be doing a more thorough review of features during the course of the day. I've already found out that the new Sky feature does not (added in the latest version) support the SpaceNavigator. A big disappointment since it would be so much fun to fly through the sky with my favorite 3D mouse. In the meantime, read some more details on the new release from Stefan Geens at OgleEarth (who had the advantage of waking up 5 hours earlier than me).
Here's a video I've put together showing the new Google Sky feature:
Also, here is a story with video showing the new photo viewer in GE 4.2.
Read on for more information on GE 4.2.
Posted by FrankTaylor at August 22, 2007 08:00 AM
Comments
Posted by: J at August 22, 2007 08:38 AM
Go Google Earth! This is amazing!
Posted by: Navneeth at August 22, 2007 09:05 AM
Awesome!
Very exciting feature.
Posted by: Marco at August 22, 2007 09:06 AM
Well, I think that sky-map.org is still a bit ahead. Fist of all - it's real web-based, second - it has all objects mapped, then - it has articles related to many objects and finally - it has SDSS, IRAS, H-alpha integrated. And we soon will have DSS2 integrated as well. We would like to find the way to cooperate with Google and looking for contacts. If you can help - we will appreciate it. Thanks,
K. Lysenko,
SKY-MAP.ORG,
416-8369785
Posted by: K. Lysenko at August 22, 2007 10:35 AM
Looks like the Space Navigator doesn't work in the Sky view, while it's great in the Earth view. Weird.
Good feature added to GE but it's not as good as Stellarium ... yet!
Posted by: Snark at August 22, 2007 02:41 PM
Will there be international versions of the constellations layer? Since cultures other than the default western one used have created different constellations using different combinations of stars (e.g. Russians)....
Posted by: gazing@stars at August 22, 2007 08:04 PM
Actually I saw this on CNN yesterday and i must say I am impressed. Soon no one would need any personal telescopes!! Perhaps Google would have multi-angle or multiple telescopes that people can buy time on?
Posted by: Ezer at September 13, 2007 07:08 AM
I had the ordinary version of google earth on my computor, it worked a treat i could zoom in really close.
I had to re store my computor, when we did and tried to update to 4.2.
Now i cannot get even our street.
Help please
Posted by: g parsons at October 1, 2007 03:03 PM
You can find the old version of Google Earth here - http://www.oldapps.com/Google_Earth.php
Choose Google Earth 3.0.0762 (11 MB) thats probably the one your looking for!
Posted by: Kat at October 2, 2007 12:21 PM
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Amazing! It's just like World Wind. I can't seem to use my SpaceNavigator, though... Can Google also add a "subsurface" mode, which enables viewing underground (or under water) features?