Google Earth Celebrates 10th Birthday With Voyager And Expanded Earth View

Time flies when you’re mapping the world. Google Earth turned 10 today, so Engineering Manager Sean Aksay celebrated by announcing a new tool for finding interesting places around the world and a collection of some of the most beautiful images of our planet.

Google Earth 10th anniversary

“The ability to empower groups as diverse as school children and NASA scientists to learn more about the world is what I love about Google Earth,” wrote Aksay in a blog post. “It has the potential to make the planet a far more connected place, if you take the time to explore, discover and share what you learn.”

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Google kicked off Earth View’s birthday bash by releasing Voyager, which is a new layer to the desktop Google Earth. It dots various areas with colors to indicate Street View highlights, 3D cities, satellite imagery updates, Google Earth and Highlight Tours, which walk you through some of the most interesting places in the world, providing notes that give you a better understanding of area you’re seeing. The tours are excellent and it’s easy to lose track of time while you “fly” around the world to check out the Temple of Bayon in Angkor, Cambodia or enjoy the view from Mount Fuji in Japan. 

Google Voyager 10th anniversary

Google also gave Earth View a big boost. Earth View started off as a small collection of Google Earth’s most interesting images, curated by Google employees. To celebrate Google Earth’s 10th anniversary, the company has expanded that collection to 1,500 images. Browsing Earth View is fun, but it’s also turned out to be a great way to snag a cool background for your mobile device or PC, and Google encourages it. It’s not a bad way to celebrate the 10th one of Google’s coolest projects.