5 Google Earth Tips To Get the Most Out of Google Earth
Google Earth is the most powerful tool to explore the earth and the space right from your PC’s screen! You can easily navigate through terrains, streets, highways, jungles, mountains, and almost anywhere on Earth. It is not just about viewing the earth, it is also the biggest hub of knowledge to get information about any place on the earth and its history.
Overall, Google Earth is awesome and it can baffle you in ways you cannot imagine. To help you get the most out of Google Earth, we have created a list of 5 Google Earth tips.
1. Go On a Safari
Google Earth actually lets you go on a safari while sitting in front of your PC’s screen. You can see animals in their natural habitat and even use street view or ground-level view to get as close as possible. Of course, it will be still imagery, but you can navigate around and see them in close-ups. In the “Layers” section at the bottom left corner, click on “Voyager”.
Google Earth will ask you to start a Safari. You can either let Google take you on a safari using its hand-picked places where Google knows there are different animals or you can roam about yourself. Google Earth will highlight places where there are chances to find different animals and you can zoom in to that location to see if you get lucky and spot an animal you love.
2. Go Back in History
My personal favorite, Google Earth lets you see how an area looked like in the past with a database of over 10 years on all the places. If you are moving to a new place, you can check its history to know how it looked before and gain more knowledge about it.
While viewing any location on Google Earth, you will see a tiny clock at the bottom with years written next to it. Just click on it and you will switch to history mode.
You can move the slider above to move between times and see how an area has changed in the past years.
3. Gain Knowledge about the Moon, Mars, and The Sky
By default, Google Earth opens in “Earth” mode, but you can also switch to Moon, Mars, or Sky mode to learn about them instead. Click on the “Planet” icon (looks like Saturn) in the top menu and select what you want to explore.
The planet will open up and you can navigate it similar to how you can navigate Earth. Clicking on places and links will show the location, history, and what they are.
4. See A location at a Different Time of the Day
You can also see how a location looks at specific times of the day, like in daylight, night, or evening. Click on the “Sunlight” icon in the top menu and the light slider will open up.
You can move the slider to see what a location looks like under different Sunlight exposures.
5. Use the Awesome Flight Simulator
Using Google Earth you can roam the world on a jet! Yes, you heard me right, Google Earth has a built-in flight simulator that allows you to fly a virtual jet plane anywhere on Earth to visit places and roam around. To use the Flight Simulator, click on “Tools” in the top menu bar and select “Enter Flight Simulator”.
On the next page, you can select your jet (go for SR22 if you are a newbie) and the location from where you want to start. You can either start from your current location or any airport. I will recommend you choose “current location” if you are new as you won’t have to take off the plane.
Once the simulator starts, you can use the arrow keys to move around. However, it isn’t as easy as you may think. Google has used similar controls as a real jet, so the controls are very sensitive and you need to vary basic flying. I crashed the plane 3 times before getting a hang of it.
Time To Explore the World!
Google Earth has amazing tools to see the beauty of Earth in different ways and learn about places. The above Google Earth tips should help you use Google Earth in a better way and see the world from a different perspective. Google Earth is filled with many other awesome tools that are worth checking out, do give it a whirl and see what interests you.