Satellite Images, Live

Looking for satellite images? Live satellite images? I am sorry to disappoint you, but best way to get some satellite images live right to your computer or other Internet device would be to launch your own satellite! Since Google Maps doesn't sound like anything new, some details about it must be pointed out before moving on to the real subject of today's article, so here they are - until now, Google used high resolution imagery from DigitalGlobe, as well as from various government sources. Now, Google just got its satellite images a few times better, because they have exclusive rights to the images provided by the most powerful commercial satellite!

What happened yesterday is a "first time" for Google, and it gets deeper than just "the most powerful commercial satellite handling space images has been launched." The storry goes like this: on the 6th of September, a Delta II rocket nicely painted with the Google logo jumped up from Vandenberg Air Force Base, carrying the GeoEye-1 satellite into space.

Since this satellite is the most powerful commercial space image one orbiting as we speak, it should be obvious that Google Maps will soon be able to provide the best satellite images live to our computers(well, at least sometimes), since they have exclusive rights to use the images for mapping, as I said earlier. Any word about the resolution of the maps provided by GeoEye-1? Sure, why not, it's no secret!

The GeoEye-1 satellite is able to provide 41-centimeter (16-inch) imagery to the United States government, while Google will only get downsampled 50-centimeter (20-inch) imagery, but this is still insanely accurate. I don't even want to imagine how accurate could be military satellites, these days, but I guess they could count the flies on top of the White House, if they would really need that!

Current press releases say Google's imagery will allow from now on to display home plates in baseball parks, and just for your knowledge, the IKONOS satellite, currently providing images to Microsoft and Yahoo's mapping applications, only has a maximum resolution of 82-centimeter (32-inch).

Unfortunately, there's no official information available from Geoeye just yet to confirm that Google will use the images provided by the GeoEye-1 satellite or not, but the presence of the corporate logo on the rocket used to launch the satellite doesn't leave much room for "maybe" or "it is possible that..."

I know we won't ever get our satellite images live unless we pay a serious amount of money for such a thing, especially because this is also a matter of national security for the US, but today's news seems to give me hope. I am not hoping for higher resolution images, I know it may sound strange, but here's what I dream of - detailed maps for the entire planet, all coming from Google Maps/Google Earth or any other company that can turn this into reality first.

Until then, I guess we'll have to replace satellite images live with satelite images..."go take a nap, Uncle Sam doesn't want you to count the flies on top of the White House, we have experts able to do that!"