BREATHTAKING PERSPECTIVES YIELD AWESOME PERCEPTIONS

Our perceptions depend largely on our points of view. The ways in which we understand our world, for example, is highly dependent on the pictures we see.

Photography has given us a new set of tools and capabilities to see the world in new ways.

Technology advances have augmented what we’ve been able to see with our naked eyes from our normal vantage points.

Google Earth now offers an incredibly beautiful set of images of our planet, taken from a satellite flying high above.

There are now more than 1500 images in Earth View, a curated collection that is available for download as wallpaper for your computer and mobile devices.

The images look like magnificent abstract paintings, as the colors, shapes, textures and patterns splay across the screen. They are astonishing in their beauty, and even more breathtaking once we realize that this is all real.

You can also access Earth View via an extension for Google Chrome. It first launched in October 2014, and is available to download here.

The images are drawn from the DigitalGlobe and Astrium/CNES imagery that Google acquired for use in Google Earth and Google Maps. DigitalGlobes launched and runs the IKONOS, GeoEye and WorldView series of commercial satellites.

Astrium (the parent company) operates the SPOT and Pleïades and other satellite platforms for the French and European space agencies. This is high-resolution optical imagery on a scale of 50 cm to 2.5m.

If you don’t use Chrome, you can browse, gallery-style, on Google’s Earth View website, and share images with a direct link or on some social media platforms.

There is also one-click access to the location on Google Maps and the option to download. This access is not at full resolution and not geo-referenced, however.

We love exploring our world via Earth View images, both as a purely thrilling dose of beauty and as inspiration for where we might want to travel next. Check it out!

Read more about Beautiful Perceptions in Beautiful Perceptions On the Street Now, Extra Senses Make Life More Beautiful Now, Multi-Sensory Taste is Beautiful Now and Perception Is Art Now.

And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact Daily Fix posts.

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Do you have amazing photos? Enter them in this week’s BN Photo Competition. We run new creative competitions every week! Now, it’s even easier to enter with the new BeautifulNow App!

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google. “Kumarina, Australia.”
2. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google.  “Iran.”
3. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google. “Ayers Rock, Australia.”
4. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google. “Tuamotus Islands, French Polynesia.”
5. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google. “Yellowstone National Park, United States.”
6. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google. “Mauritania.”
7. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google. “Pyin Hpyu Gyi, Myanmar.”
8. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google. “Sun Lakes, Arizona, United States.”
9. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google.
10. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google. “Tanami, Australia.”
11. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google.
12. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google. “Akjoujt, Mauritania.”
13. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google. “Davis County, California.”
14. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google. “Tablelands, Australia.”
15. Image: by BN App - Download now!
16. Image: Courtesy of Earth View with Google. “Saint John, United States Virgin Islands.”