Google in 2013 joined forces with NASA, Time and the United States Geological Survey to create Google Earth Timelapse, an unprecedented interactive satellite imagery tool designed to help visualize how our planet has changed over the past several decades.
The search giant recently pushed out the largest Timelapse update yet with four years of additional imagery. Using the same techniques that were used to improve Google Maps and Google Earth this past June, the newest version of Timelapse offers a sharper view of our planet with truer colors and fewer distracting artifacts.
Google said it used more than five million images captured by five different satellites over the past three decades to create 33 cloud-free mosaics of our planet – one for each of the past 33 years dating back to 1984. The resulting 3.95-terapixel global images were then encoded into just over 25 million overlapping multi-resolution video tiles that were made explorable by technology from Carnegie Mellon.
Those interested in checking out the new imagery can head over to the Earth Engine website. Alternately, there’s a YouTube playlist available with footage from 193 different noteworthy locations around the globe in up to 4K quality. Happy viewing!