After almost a year the Google Earth was last updated, today (Feb 2) Google have announced the new and improved Google Earth 5.0 (beta). Despite the long wait since the 4.3 version, this 5.0 release seem to have lots more to offer to the users. This time Google Earth added several new features in this new release.
Google Earth 5.0 lets you browse through historical imagery from all around the globe. Here’s an example:
You can see the image on the right is the image of Banda Aceh in June 2004 while the image on the left is the image of the same spot in Jan 2005, a month after the disastrous tsunami that hit Sumatra in late 2004. Here is the tutorial.
Google Earth is known for its ability to browse over the land all around the Earth, and now in Google Earth 5, user can also browse the other part of the Earth, which is the ocean. You can dive into the ocean and discover the sea floor, underwater mountain and even the deepest Mariana Trench. Along with that, Google have made an extensive collaboration with many partners that lets the users to further learn about the ocean explorations, marine animal and climate change. Among other partners are National Geographic, BBC’s Planet Earth, shipwreckcentral.com, and many other Marine Science Institutes. You can enable the Ocean folder in the left layer panel. Here is the tutorial.
Google have added the Sky Mode in the 4.2 version, and for this 5.0 version, Google have yet added one more layer which is the Mars, yeah the Mars! Powered by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter imagery, we are able to view Mars’ surfaces, craters and mountains in beautiful 3D rendering. NASA also provides up-to-date galleries about the Mars’ exploring project and placemarks.
For this 5.0 release, Google Earth lets us record our navigation in real-time without using the placemark like before. We can save the journey for future visit but unfortunately it wont lets us save the file and play it elsewhere (feature available in Advanced version). During the recording, we can add narrative voice or soundtrack to personalized the journey and share them with friends. Here is the tutorial.
For the new users, other features that are available are star/sky view, flight simulator, street view, 3D building, terrain, weather, live traffic, real-time sunlight indicator, and various galleries (geographical web, places of interest and global awareness) etc.
You can download the new Google Earth 5.0 here or here.
Update:
On March 13, 2009, Google announced the 3D maps of Mars. The updated allow us to view the ancient and historic maps drawn by the early astronomers (Giovanni Schiaparelli, Percival Lowell etc.)
Users can also follow the flight of the two Mars orbiters, the Odyssey & the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using the Google Earth.
Google also added an extensive update on informational layers, imagery, and terrain.
March 19, 2009: Google introduce the first high-resolution imagery provided by GeoEye-1 satellite, but for now its only an optional layer in Google Earth.
Google representative stating that the GeoEye images will be integrated into the database, months to come. You can view the images at Google's GeoEye-1 preview site.
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