Google Earth’s 5.0 new oceans feature plumbs the Ocean Depths

Google Earth’s new oceans feature plumbs the Ocean Depths

Google Earth dives into the oceans
Google finally put the world's oceans on the map.
During a splashy presentation Monday at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, the Internet giant unveiled a feature in its Google Earth program that will allow users to swim through undersea canyons as deep as the Mariana Trench and encounter creatures like a critically endangered, prehistoric fish called the coelacanth.

Google also unveiled an interactive, 3-D map of Mars that enables visitors to whisk, as if by rocket ship, over Martian mountains that dwarf Everest and scan Martian rocks through the eyes of the rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
The 3-D Martian map is the first result of a 3-year-old agreement between Google and NASA's Ames Research Center to bring the mountains of research on Mars to the public.
Besides getting close looks at rocks analyzed by the rovers to uncover Mars' watery past, the new program will enable visitors to skim the surface through the eyes of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Google board member and former Vice President Al Gore, who attended the event, called the latest version of Google Earth "an extremely powerful educational tool" that he hoped would influence the Climate Conference in Copenhagen later this year.
Google hopes to inspire a public push for more marine exploration. Only 5% of the ocean floor has been mapped in any detail, and less than 1% of the oceans is designated marine protected areas.

Google Earth Plumbs the Ocean Depths
The software now lets users dive miles beneath the ocean waves.
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Functies van Google Earth 5.0 (bèta):

* Historische beelden van over de hele wereld
* Informatie over de zeebodem en het zeeoppervlak afkomstig van oceaanexperts
* Vereenvoudigd rondreizen met audio- en stemopname

Download Google Earth 5.0
Google Ocean will let users explore shipwrecks and reefs in the deep blue sea
The latest version of Google Earth lets people plunge beneath the sea, swim around underwater volcanoes, hover above shipwrecks and navigate mountains on the sea bed.
The Ocean in Google Earth software also includes video and photographs of thousands of marine species, and lets virtual divers follow whales and sharks tagged with satellite tracking devices.