You can go back in time and view past images from the last 90 days (the service started 7 September 2018) and the inclusion of multi-spectral data lets us view vegetation, bodies of water and urban land cover. While the resolution is not as high, and the purpose not the same as Google’s, you do get a couple of unique features. The Sentinel-2 satellite images recently offered as open data allow us to see recent snapshots across Australia, updated every few days, to provide quite a different view to Google’s idyllic imagery. The endless blue skies (or put it another way, the lack of clouds) is a sure sign they are hand-selected, combined and enhanced. For the rest of us, it may take months or even years before a refresh.Īlso, these images make things look pretty and green. city–in New York, they are updated weekly. You are familiar with Google satellite images, right? But to see recent map and earth satellite images you probably need to live in a big U.S. Updated every few days, these ‘earth-selfies’ show us the real Australia, clouds, droughts and all.

New open data satellite images capture our continent in a new way.

Near real-time satellite images show us the real Australia

Google earth real time view