GOOGLE SATELLITE EARTH MAPS ARCHIVE
GOOGLE SATELLITE EARTH MAPS SERIES

Google’s version of this algorithm factors in other special circumstances, like seasonal effects.

The team analyzed more than 700 trillion pixels of satellite data in the entire mosaicking process. Eventually, these “best pixels” are stitched together into a single map-a mosaic. Then it runs that program for the next pixel. Then it drops the images that are much lighter than that average-since they likely include clouds-and averages the most recent set of remaining, now-cloudless photos to find a final color value.

GOOGLE SATELLITE EARTH MAPS ARCHIVE

(If the archive is properly calibrated, that one pixel should describe the same spot of Earth no matter when it was taken.) In essence, the algorithm takes an initial average color value for that pixel over time. Mosaicking joins the cloudless parts together through the power of surprising, elegant math.Ī mosaicking algorithm inspects each pixel of imagery individually-across all of the images of that particular pixel collected by Landsat 7 and 8. Over time, though, very few places are completely obscured by clouds. This makes sense: About 70 percent of Earth’s land surface is covered by clouds every day. Taken individually, most of these pictures captured by the Landsat sensors include some clouds. (Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 are only the most recent of these craft.)

GOOGLE SATELLITE EARTH MAPS SERIES

government’s Landsat program, a series of satellites that have photographed the Earth’s surface every 16 days since the 1970s.

Mosaicking draws upon the vast archives of imagery that have been created by the U.S. Instead, Google engineers used a recently developed cartography technique called mosaicking. Neither of the images above were captured on a single shoot by a solitary satellite, the way that a camera might capture a snapshot. This “ghostly” runway effect points to how Google makes its maps cloudless in the first place. Its remoteness gives it a unique ecology, but-given its location in the middle of the tropical Indian Ocean-it is frequently obscured by clouds. Almost a thousand miles from Australia, the island was largely untouched by human settlement until the past two centuries.

The improvements can be seen in the new map’s depiction of Christmas Island. Google had not updated its low- and medium-resolution satellite map in three years. Most importantly, this new map contains fewer clouds than before-only the second time Google has unveiled a “cloudless” map. The new map, which activates this week for all users of Google Maps and Google Earth, consists of orbital imagery that is newer, more detailed, and of higher contrast than the previous version. Google has added nearly 1.5 trillion pixels of new data to its service *. On Monday, it gets a makeover, and its many users will see something different when they examine the planet’s forests, fields, seas, and cities. More than 1 billion people use Google Maps every month, making it possibly the most popular atlas ever created.

Google satellite earth maps