Google’s Skybox Imaging renamed Terra Bella

Google has just announced that Skybox Imaging has been renamed Terra Bella. The new name is intended to indicate a change of focus from just a satellite imaging company to pioneering the search for patterns of change in the physical world.

Google acquired Skybox Imaging back in June 2014. We have not seen Skybox imagery in Google Earth, mainly because it is lower resolution that than offered by Google’s usual imagery suppliers. Despite the lower resolution, Skybox has produced some interesting products over the years. We saw a gif animation of the Burning Man festival and in the same post you can see the first HD resolution video of Earth from space. We also had a look at Skybox’s image of the November 2014 Poppy display at the Tower of London. We love the Google Chrome extension “Earth View” and we noticed that it includes a few images from Skybox Imaging. In October 2014 Skybox announced the Skybox for Good programme, which works with non-profits to provide fresh satellite imagery where they need it.

Terra Bella plans to launch a lot more satellites in the coming years and we hope to see great things from them in the future.

The Burning Man gif animation.

SkySat-1 Video of Mount Ontake, Japan on October 16, 2014. Mt. Ontake erupted on September 27, 2014.

Be sure to visit the new Terra Bella website for more examples of their products. The new Terra Bella blog can be found here.

As of this writing, the old domain, skybox.com seems to be inaccessible, making any links to the old Skybox Imaging blog no-longer valid.

Thank you to GEB reader Eric for letting us know that the Terra Bella name is derived from the street where they have their offices (Terra Bella Ave, Mountain View, California, USA).