Google Earth may give us a real, live view of what our blue marble actually looks like, but even reality could stand to be improved a bit now and then. So to make sure you get the beautiful summer you deserve — while you’re sitting inside a dark room hunched over your computer screen — Google has taken steps to give you a new view of the world — totally cloud-free.
Thanks to hundreds of terabytes of data swiped from the USGS’s and NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite, zooming out to a global view now fills your screen with 800,000 megapixels of pristine, cloudless Earth. Plus, multiple regions have been bestowed with refreshened imagery including Russia, Indonesia and central Africa.
You can check out the sunnier view either in Google Maps by turning on satellite view or in Google Earth right now. It’s all the beauty of the outside world without, well, actually being outside. [Google Blog]