Google Timelapse

Google has expanded its mapping platform to include a project called Timelapse. It takes you back through time to see how our planet has changed over the last 25 to 30 years. Google worked with the US Geological Survey, NASA, and TIME to combine over 2 million images taken by Landsat satellites.

Google went through almost a petabyte of data to find the clearest images of Earth taken every year between 1984 and 2012. The project includes a number of pre-selected locations, like the creation of Dubai's artificial Palm Islands, the melting of Alaska's Columbia Glacier, and the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, which is very dramatic. You always hear about how South America is losing so much of its rain forests every year, but now you can see how much.