The World Wonders Project

 

There are a lot of amazing sites around the world, and thanks to Google’s various technologies such as Street View and Google Earth they’re easier to explore than ever. Google has now taken 132 historic sites from around the world and put them together into a single showcase called the World Wonders Project.

 

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The project covers major sites that we all know about, such as Stonehenge and Pompeii, and also covers lesser-known sites that are quite amazing, such as the Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama. This video shows a bit more about how it works:

 

 

The sites all include Street View imagery (much of which was captured using a Street View Trike), photos, videos, and 3D models in Google Earth.

Great tools for information about the solar eclipse

 

Over the next few weeks, the earth will be seeing a series of unique celestial events. Tomorrow many of us we will be able to see a a solar eclipse, June 4 will feature a lunar eclipse, and June 6 is the Transit of Venus. As you might expect, there are great Google Earth tools to help you make the most of all three events.

For the solar eclipse, the eclipse viewer from HeyWhatsThat.com is a great way to see where the best locations for the viewing the eclipse are located.

 

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You can use the dropdown box in the lower right corner of the site to view other simulations, both past and future. You can learn more about the features available on their site by reading this text file.

Another great resource for this eclipse is Xavier Jubier’s map.

 

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In addition to this eclipse, he has an extensive collection of data from other eclipses from 1961 through 2039 available to view.