The GeoEye-1 satellite weighs more than two tons and orbits the Earth from pole to pole 15 times a day, traveling 16,800 miles per hour while taking pictures and sending them back to receivers on the ground. The satellite takes images at 0.41-meter resolution in black and white and at 1.65-meter color resolution. At 0.41-resolution, you can see home plate on a baseball field. The satellite passes over each area of the Earth at about 10:30 a.m. local time. You can easily view images from GeoEye-1 with a Web browser or through the Google Earth application.
Instructions
1. Go to GeoEye's High Resolution Image Gallery website (see Resources).
2. Click on "Featured Satellite Images" to see selected captioned images, such as Mbombela Stadium in South Africa, the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico, and the Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport in Haiti after the earthquake of January 2010.
3. Download the free Google Earth application (see Resources) if you don't already have it installed on your computer. Double-click on the Google Earth shortcut to launch the program.
4. Click on the "More" folder in Google Earth's "Layers" panel, and then click the "GeoEye Featured Imagery" layer. GeoEye imagery labels will appear on the base globe where featured imagery is located. Double-click on a GeoEye featured imagery label to see information about a picture and to see the full-resolution image.
Tags: Google Earth, Earth application, featured imagery, Google Earth application
