Google Earth Blog

The amazing things about Google Earth


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Street View portals to Mars, the Moon and Atlantis

Recently, we had a look at recent additions to Street View. We also included a map of changes over the past month. There were two spots in the ‘changes’ map that we found particularly interesting.

The first is in the Atlantic Ocean and upon closer inspection is very close to an underwater mountain named ‘Atlantis Seamount’. We were able to see the blue Street View indicator in Google Earth but were unable to enter Street View at that location.

However, in Google Maps you can enter the Street View, but you get instantly teleported to Santes Creus Monastery in Catalonia, Spain.


Santes Creus Monastery, Catalonia, Spain. See in Street View

The second location is in Angola. This time we were able to see it in both Google Maps and Google Earth and it turns out to be a portal to the Moon!


Portal to the moon found in Angola.


If you enter Street View at coordinates -9.097507,15.484863 in Angola, you will see Lunar Street View imagery. See in Google Maps.

We had heard about both Lunar and Martian Street View imagery before. Thank you to GEB reader ‘poli’ for giving us a link to a Martian image in the comments of this post. We had previously not managed to find a way to view it from within Google Earth. After we knew what to look for, we tracked down the Martian portal in the province of Papua, Indonesia.


The portal to Mars can be found at coordinates -4.5895946,137.4492225.


Street View imagery on Mars captured by the rover Curiosity. See in Google Maps

Not far north of the Atlantis portal, in the Atlantic Ocean at coordinates 40.571082, -29.539372, there is another Street View portal that takes you to underwater Street View of the Galapagos Islands.

To view the Mars and Moon locations in Google Earth download this KML file.

You cannot view Street View in the ‘Mars’ or ‘Moon’ modes of Google Earth or Google Maps because the ‘yellow man’ is not shown.

As we have mentioned in the past the blue Street View layers tend to show different locations at different zoom levels and the blue markings for the above locations can only be seen when zoomed out quite a long way and not at all in Google Earth for the ‘Mars portal’.

In order to see the blue Street View outlines when zoomed out, first zoom in until you see the yellow man, hold him above the map and then zoom out with the ‘-‘ key on the keyboard. You can also move around with the arrow keys.

If anyone knows of any Street View on Mars or the Moon other than the two photospheres featured above, or if you know of any other portals where entering Street View in one location takes you somewhere totally different, please let us know in the comments.

An alien on the Moon?

We have told you in the past about various news stories reporting apparent alien activity in Google Earth imagery. For example, this story, where sonar tracks from ships were mistaken for an underwater alien base. Or this story where a combination of lighting and image artifacts makes a crater on the moon look like an alien space ship. And, then, there was the secret Mars base. Which, again, is most likely just a result of image artifacts making an ordinary geographical feature look suspiciously regular.

The latest such story comes from a YouTube video posted by YouTuber wowforreeel which has gained over five million views in under a month. It features this image, which at first glance appears to be a human shaped object and its shadow.

Human figure and shadow

However, a quick look at the scale bar at the bottom left reveals that the figure, if real, would have to be hundreds of feet high. So, instead of a human, it would be more like a Colossus as suggested by this article.
A careful look at the surrounding craters reveals that the light in the image is coming from near the bottom of the image and so the apparent shadow is in the wrong direction.

This article on pix11.com quotes a NASA scientist Noah Petro, as saying:

My best guess,” Petro said in a statement to PIX11, “is that it’s something (dust, an eyelash, scratch on the negative) that was on the film. Remember, this was in the pre-digital days when all sorts of nasty things could happen to film.”

So, as with the previous stories, the explanation has to do with how the images were acquired rather than an actual feature on the Moon, but it’s an interesting find nevertheless.


If you wish to see it in Google Earth for yourself, switch to Moon view, and enter these co-ordinates 27°34’26.35″N 19°36’4.75″W in the search box, or you can simply use this KML file to fly to it directly in Google Earth.

What is that mystery object on Google Moon?

A recent story on the Daily Mail claims to have found a “craft” on Google Moon.  While you certainly should take anything from that site with a grain of salt, it’s indeed an interesting image:

image-on-moon

So what could the image be?  The “object” is likely to be a visual anomaly possibly caused by light from the sun cast on rocks that happen to appear regular at certain angles, and also a function of the resolution of the imagery.  There have been similar sightings in the past, such as the famous “face on Mars” from years ago, which also turned out to be a trick due to resolution of imagery, processing, and lighting.

You can check it out for yourself by loading this KML file.  Be sure to enable the “featured satellite images” layer in Google Moon in order to see this particular image.

What do you think it might be?

(via Daily Mail)

Exploring the moon in Google Earth

Moon choice for Google EarthWhile hundreds millions of people have used Google Earth over the years, many aren’t aware of some of the great things it can do.  One of those is the ability to explore our moon, which is an excellent feature to have.  Google first introduced this feature back in 2009, and it’s still amazing to see.

Just look for the little planet icon in the upper middle of Google Earth and you’ll see an option titled “Moon“. The moon in Google Earth changes the virtual globe into a 3D rendition of the moon. The terrain of the moon is in 3D and there are layers telling you more about the moon.

Here’s a screenshot that Frank took a few years ago showing the Apollo 11 landing site:

Moon in 3D in Google Earth - Apollo 11

The first thing you should check out in the Google Earth moon mode is the awesome Apollo 11 tour found in the layers under: Moon Gallery->Guided Tours->Apollo 11. This tour is narrated by Andrew Chaiken and Astronaut Buzz Aldrin and is one of the best illustrations of the Apollo 11 mission I’ve seen to date!

Here is a YouTube video introduction of Moon in Google Earth by Google:

When this feature first came out, Frank was fortunate enough to be on hand for the official announcement, and he mentioned quite a few thoughts and features about this new piece of Google Earth.  After you finish reading that, head into Google Earth and try it out for yourself if you never have before.

New Blog – Google Earth Library; Moon and Mars Overlays

The author of the Topographical Maps Archive, Matt Fox, who had released some pretty cool Google Earth files I wrote about last month, has just announced the release of a new web site called Google Earth Library. His new web site is kind of a blog focused on Google Earth content (not news, or simple placemarks), with an emphasis on education, environment, or science visualizations. He has also opened up his blog to allow people to register and submit their own content on the site. For the past few weeks he has been populating, and categorizing, the site with dozens of example content (many of the examples are written about here at Google Earth Blog, but not all of them). It is definitely worth browsing through his posts over the last two weeks. He has picked some really good examples of Google Earth content.
Moon on Google EarthIn celebration of the grand opening, Matt has released at least two new Google Earth files: One that provided a new Moon overlay for Google Earth using high-resolution satellite photos from the NASA Clementine mission. And another which provides overlays for GE for showing Mars imagery from the Mars Digital Image Mosaic at 64 pixels per degree produced at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona. Both of these were created using the region layer capability in GE 4 to allow high resolution tiles to be viewed as you zoom in closer. As Matt recommends in the instructions after you download the files, you should turn off most (or all) of your layers (so you don’t see Earth-based information while viewing these planets). And, I recommend turning off the View->Atmosphere as well.
Congratulations to Matt for creating another resource for viewing Google Earth content. I look forward to writing about these and other interesting content he manages to find or create.
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