Topic: Google Earth

[ocala]

Noticed something today that I never saw in Earth.
A commercial jet. They have probably always been there but just never noticed.
when I zoomed into the pic below you could see the windows.

[vreihen]

...and we wonder WHY they could NOT "see" Malaysia flight MH370?

Google and the other sites do not have live imagery!  Some of their photographic data comes from sources that are sampled as infrequently as every 5 years, and comes from high-res cameras in airplanes and not space.....

[Jáchym]

Exactly, though I have read an interesting article a few months ago about how much progress there is in the satellite technology and in the next few years they are planning on launching new generation of satellites with such a resolution that you can tell a human from space if they lie on the ground (not if you are standing, thats still above the resolution, but you can see for example individual cars). And it also mentioned that this could basically mean there would be a picture of every place every approximately 90 minutes (though of course this could be problematic due to clouds). But still... and the goal is to then cover the entire Earth with satellites that will have overlapping radius and so in fact you will have a live view of the Earth 24/7...

[ocala]

...and we wonder WHY they could NOT "see" Malaysia flight MH370?

Google and the other sites do not have live imagery!  Some of their photographic data comes from sources that are sampled as infrequently as every 5 years, and comes from high-res cameras in airplanes and not space.....

Count me as schooled. I always thought it was sat imagery.

[Jáchym]

WX forum May 22, 2020

Hi, how is it going today.

We have a really nice weather today, it's sunny and warm.

Nice, you wanna waive at me on Google Earth?

OK, hang on, Im going outside the house

minute later....

Did you see me?

Yeah, I see you have a new hair cut 

[vreihen]

At least using Google Maps, they credit the data source(s) as you scroll/zoom in the copyright message at the bottom right of the screen.  If you take a look at the island of Grenada (Southern Caribbean), they use satellite images (see the clouds?), NOAA, and US Navy data if you scroll around.  A lot of Google's magic is stitching together multiple sources, which is apparent when the resolution changes or when you start out with a wide zoom (satellite) and zoom into aerial photos.

Although they seem to be using their own data (Google planes?) today, they used to show NY State GIS imagery from the state's 5-year photo surveys.  It was nice, because the copyright info gave the year of the images.....