Photos: The best of Google Earth

Around the world, via burning oil fields, topless sunbathers and Area 51...

By Will Sturgeon, 6 November 2006 17:50

A man in Las Vegas about to open his car door.

copyright: Google



Want more great Earth photos?

Check out Nasa's top 10 views

Comments

There are 19 comments. Join the discussion

  1. 1. Mark Kobayashi-Hillary

    How much time did Will spend scrolling across images of the Hague looking for a woman sunbathing on her roof? We should be told...

  2. 2. Don Tregartha

    Thanks Will, for a glorious waste of time!

  3. 3. anonymous

    are you completely sick? 90% of all self-announced "the best of google earth" is actually in the UK (according to you)? wake up and travel the world. (Ed note. Are you sure? I think you'll find it is closer to 30 per cent... clearly you are not a maths teacher, or heaven help the kids you teach if you are.)

  4. 4. Dave Harcourt

    surely the mysterious green circles are center pivot irrigated fields

  5. 5. AJL

    FYI:
    Nellis Air Force Base =/= Area 51

  6. 6. anonymous

    You could only manage to put one photo per page?

  7. 7. anonymous

    The only thing missing from this story is a KML file with all the places, so that we could all view them in Google Earth or Google Maps...

  8. 8. stijn v.

    That image from the Versaille gardens (21) looks more like an early Mikey Mouse if you ask me.

  9. 9. EatingPie

    The circles look like agricultural growth. In Arizona an Central Valley satellite photos you see the same thing. The automated sprinkler systems roll across the fields in a circle, creating these circles of crops (not to be confused with crop circles!).

  10. 10. anonymous

    Civilian vs MilitaryTechnology
    So if this is what is commercially available, - just how close can the military go???? - Read the watch on your wrist?

  11. 11. sandeep z george

    where are the 2 major things i expected to see in this collection

    1. GREAT WALL OF CHINA
    2. TAJ MAHAL OF INDIA

    (Ed note. They are in China and India respectively.)

  12. 12. Chris

    Nellis AFB is in Las Vegas itself. The base known as Area 51 is actually Groom Lake.


    As a side note...I had an aeronautics professor who used to work there as a test pilot when he was in the service. He said there's a big poster in the hangars that says when the satellites are going over, so they know when to pull everything off the ramp so pictures can't be taken...

  13. 13. anonymous

    You might already have this up your editorial sleeves, but might be worth asking readers to submit their own best views from Google Earth - could be anything - and then edit these together as a follow up piece. Can we do better? We should be allowed to find out!

    (Ed note. Any contributions would be welcome.)

  14. 14. Erik

    How do you like this "face" i found in Caucasus Mountains in Russia:

    http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=sochi,+russia&ll=43.90754,40.410461&spn=0.119223,0.340576&t=h

    (Ed note. We love it Erik.)

  15. 15. John H Woods

    There's a better plane-in-the-air shot over Haweswater, Huntingdon, UK.

    I think it's a WWII Lancaster flying on a battle of Britain memorial site.

    John

    PS: what about the Arlesberg bug?

  16. 16. Sally

    Strange that the shot of Microsoft headquarters should look like a PCB

  17. 17. anonymous

    That is the Devils's Punchbowel and Gibbet Hill at Hindhead.

  18. 18. anonymous

    The building group is on neither North Island nor Coronado; it is on the Naval Amphibious Base down the Silver Strand from Coronado.

  19. 19. G807

    cool place
    awsome place
    but
    nerdy place

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