Google and NASA Release Major Google Earth Update

The Mountain View company and NASA partnered to bring impressive new imagery into the famous Google Earth mapping tool. Basically, the new update is divided into three parts: astronaut photography of Earth, satellite imagery and earth city lights. According to Wei Luo, Senior GIS Specialist the first layer of the new pack of pictures includes the best pictures made since 1960 when the astronauts captured pictures with the Earth using the Mercury missions.

"The "Satellite Imagery" layer highlights some of the most interesting Earth imagery taken by NASA satellites over the years. Some placemarks also offer the option of downloading additional imagery from different years or seasons and overlaying them on the earth's surface. Being a space program lover, I used to spend hours on the NASA website looking at these photos, so it's nice to have them at my fingertips. Be sure to check out the satellite image overlays of continuous eruption of Mt. Etna at 37.730000�, 15.000000� if you are a volcano lover like me," Wei Luo wrote about the second part of the update.

The last layer, the "Earth City Lights" provides a different perspective of the images displayed by Google Earth. "One can identify some interesting urbanization patterns around the globe. I find it even more interesting to have roads and placename layers on at the same time as I fly over this layer," the GIS specialist tried to describe it.

And that's not all! The search giant added even more imagery to Google Earth such as five new countries and detailed pictures with their roads. Also, the Netherlands received fresh new images including business listings and Dutch names for several locations.

If you want to download the latest version of Google Earth, you can take it straight from Softpedia using this link. Also, the Mac OS X version is available here.