The new timelapse function available on Google Earth allows you to discover what transformations our planet has undergone in the last 37 years
If moving virtually from one end of the world to the other has been nonsense since 2001 thanks to Google Earthno we have a new tool that allows us to ‘time travel’. Google’s software which collects and makes available free of charge satellite images and aerial photographs of the earth’s surface has in fact developed a new function capable of creating a timelapse of the last 37 years of the location you want to observe. Timelapse – a sequence of images that allows rapid visualization of very slow changes over time – is now available on Google software thanks to a collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab. The project will also see the cooperation of NASA and the European Copernicus program regarding the annual updating of the images.
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How do we use Google Earth timelapse?
To the procedure it’s really very simplejust connect to the site and type the area of interest in the search bar: the sequence of images will be automatically generated starting from the year 1984. In the time bar it is also possible to modify the speed parameter for faster or faster display of the images. slower. Furthermore, a section has been added to the site that collects the most impressive timelapses, with the possibility of seeing them in 3D.
What can we see specifically?
The images collected from 1984 to today in various areas of the world are a testimony to the changes that our planet has faced due to natural or anthropogenic causes. This means that it is possible to realize the transformations due to atmospheric phenomena, but also to make a comparison between before and after regarding the urbanization of a place with its inexorable overbuilding. In short, thanks to Google Earth timelapse we can look at the surface of the world as if it were the face of a human being who bears the signs of time and the scars of lived experiences.
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Cover image credit Google Earth
