The Interactive Earth

New version of Google Earth gives users most complete view of the planet

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This week, Google released Google Earth 5.0. With it, learning about our planet has become a lot more fun.

Google Earth is a free Web-based program that presents a replica of Earth. This virtual Earth is created by threading together satellite images of every part of the globe. Utilizing a computer mouse, users explore the world from as high as space and as low as street-level.

The first version of Google Earth was released in 2005. Since then, the program has been downloaded 500 million times, and people spend an average of1 million hours a day using it.

In previous versions, users could only view the surface of the planet. Looking at the oceans—which cover two thirds of Earth's surface—revealed an empty blue space.

Google Earth 5.0 changes that.

Over a period of two years, Google software engineers set about filling in those ocean gaps in Google Earth. The program now allows users to explore Earth's oceans, as well as the night sky and even Mars.

But Google did more than give texture to the oceans. The company has added a wealth of interactive content archived in what Google calls "layers." These layers hold videos, photos, audio clips, and Web sites provided by organizations like Cousteau Ocean World, BBC, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The interactive content covers a wide range of topics. To learn more about humpback whales in Hawaii, for example, select Hawaii in Google Earth and you'll find videos. If you're studying the World Ocean Seafloor, you'll find interactive content on that subject. Interested in finding out what ships are at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean? Clicking on a part of the Atlantic will bring up all kinds of information about the Titanic and other shipwrecks.These additions to Google Earth are about more than just filling in gaps in a program. They're also aimed at raising awareness about how important Earth's oceans are.

"I've been struggling my whole life to figure out how to reach people and get them to understand they're connected to the ocean," Dr. Sylvia Earle, a former chief scientist at NOAA and partner in creating Google Earth 5, told the New York Times. "Google Earth gets all this information now and puts it in one place for the littlest kid and the stuffiest grown-up to see in a way that hasn't been possible in all preceding history."

For more on Google Earth 5, its other features, and how to use it, visit the Google Earth User Guide.

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