#GOOGLE LIVE MAPS SATELLITE SERIES#

The big difference – apart from the size – between this and a typical handheld digital camera, is that the spacecraft will not just take snapshots but continuous images along thin strips of land or sea.

#GOOGLE LIVE MAPS SATELLITE SERIES#

The light comes in through a barrel structure, pointed at the Earth, and is bounced around by a series of mirrors, before being focused onto a CCD sensor. With its long cylindrical shape, WorldView-3 looks more like a telescope than a camera and it works on the same principle. “At its simplest, it is a decent resolution digital camera in space,” he explains, as we peer through the window into the clean room where the spacecraft is being built. What’s surprising is how basic the technology is. Rather than operate its own spacecraft, Google buys its images from a small number of commercial satellite operators, and Dierks has worked on most of the satellites used. “It gives me a lot of pride when I see a satellite image on a news programme with the DigitalGlobe logo on them.” “Everybody I’m sure has looked up their house, their downtown, their business on Google Earth, and seen images from these satellites,” says Jeff Dierks, Program Manager at Ball. Together they have changed the way we view the world. This month Google Maps celebrates its ninth anniversary, and in June so does the company’s 3-D mapping app, Google Earth. It is the latest in a series of spacecraft designed to beam back high-resolution pictures of our planet, images that most of us will eventually see on Google Maps or Google Earth. Spinning around the planet some 600 kilometres (370 miles) above us, it will cover every part of the Earth’s surface every couple of days.īall Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado is building WorldView-3 for commercial satellite operator DigitalGlobe. Once in orbit later this year, WorldView-3 will be one of the most powerful Earth observation satellites ever sent into space by a private company. The mounds may be responsible for the aerial pattern of scattered circles, though Sparavigna says on-the-ground confirmation is needed.Behind a long rectangular window, in a high white room tended by ghostly figures in masks and hats, a new satellite is taking shape. 11, 2016 - the paper has yet to be peer-reviewed. Sparavigna discusses her theory in a scientific paper posted online on Jan. These pesky critters can create nesting mounds spanning some 47 inches (120 centimeters) across and are typically surrounded by bare ground up to 108 square feet (10 square meters), according to physicist Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, a specialist in image processing and satellite imagery analysis at the Politecnico of Torino in Ital. Turns out, the desert around the Grand Canyon is home to red harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus).

(Image credit: Google Earth)Īn odd polka-dot pattern near the cinder cone volcano dubbed Vulcan's Throne on the north rim of the Grand Canyon may have a simple explanation: ants. This weird polka-dot pattern in the vegetation near a volcano on the rim of the Grand Canyon could be the work of red harvester ants. Spiral art installation 'Desert Breath' in Egypt The site was once equipped with missiles in the open air, with embankments between paired launch sites. Here, one of those sites, the Oahu Defense Area in Hawaii, is shown in 1968. His plan is to build a geo-referenced database so that anyone can research the Nike missile sites through Google Earth. Those missiles became obsolete with the advent of long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).ĭavid Tewksbury, a GIS (geographic information system) specialist at Hamilton College in New York, aimed to preserve a visual record of the abandoned Nike missile launch sites before they vanish - either as a result of being reclaimed by nature, repurposed by the military or redeveloped. Some of those missiles even carried nuclear warheads. Nike missiles, which were supersonic surface-to-air missiles, sat ready to launch at nearly 300 sites across the United States during a period of the Cold War, from 1954 to the 1970s.

This Google Earth image shows the Oahu Defense Area in Hawaii, which was equipped with missiles in open air with earthen revetments, or embankments, between paired launch sites, shown here in 1968. Mystery structures on Chinese satellite images Word 'Hamad' written on al Futaisi IslandĬhurch of Scientology Bunker in New Mexico

Island, in a lake, on an island, in a lake, on an island near Victoria Canadaīoneyard at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona Polka-dot formation on Grand Canyon made by ants Wheel structures in Azraq Oasis in Jordanīull's eye in wheel structures in Saudi ArabiaĪbandoned launch sites at Oahu Defense Area in Hawaii Island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island Philippines

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