In April NASA's Landsat Data Continuity Mission took a huge panorama. From 438 miles above the Earth, the satellite shot a 6,000-mile-long, 120-mile-wide strip of planet from Russia to South Africa. It is aptly named ‘The Long Swath.’ Oh and it's 19.06 gigapixels.

Google Earth wasn't around until about 2005, but with the power of archival satellite footage, Google's whipped up the most comprehensive timelapse known to man, covering the past 20 years of Earth. The ultimate, beautiful conclusion of this little project? Dope GIFs.

If only Howard Carter had access to satellite imagery, maybe he would have discovered more than just King Tut's tomb. Fortunately, Google Earth means that anyone can examine the planet for lost treasures. Including Angela Micol, a satellite archaeology researcher who thinks she has uncovered previously undiscovered

Glasgow's Red Road tower block housing complex was constructed by the Glasgow Housing Associating (GHA) between 1964 and 1969, with the intention of providing a modern housing community for a whopping 5000 residents.

The Netherlands have given the world so much: pizza, sex tourism, The Hague, Rembrandt, Vermeer—and let's not Aelbert Cuyp. In the tradition of the last three, the Dutch now serve up the most artistically bizarre Google blurring ever.

In 1987, five year old Saroo Brierley and his brother boarded a train that was supposed to take them home after a long day of begging on the streets of India. But the boys fell asleep, the train rolled on, and hours later they were deposited clear across the country.

One drawback from Google Earth has always been that if you pull the view back far enough, the terrain begins to look like a scene from Minecraft. Well, no longer! With the version 6.2 update, Google Earth looks even more like the real thing.

Sure, you could remotely wander about a foreign city with Google Earth but you don't get any sort of feel for the local culture that way, just a superficial view of its storefronts. The Wander app instead connects you with an actual local for a guided Instagram tour.

Touring the world in person is expensive, time-consuming, and often dangerous. And is it really that much different to playing with Google Earth on this gigantic 48 screen display that covers 40 square meters with almost 100 million pixels?

Chalk another one up for Google Earth seeing everything we can't. Australian armchair archaeologist David Kennedy simply fired up the app and managed to rediscover the ancient ruins of structures that rival the Nazca lines in southern Peru.