Internet resources: Google launches the project for the viewing a picture of Earth through time

Google company making it possible to go back in time and get a stunning historical perspective on the changes to the Earth’s surface over time, Official Blog of Google reads. Working with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NASA and TIME, Google releasing more than a quarter-century of images of Earth taken from space, compiled for the first time into an interactive time-lapse experience.

Built from millions of satellite images and trillions of pixels, you can explore this global, zoomable time-lapse map as part of TIME's new Timelapse project. View stunning phenomena such as the sprouting of Dubai’s artificial Palm Islands, the retreat of Alaska’s Columbia Glacier, the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon and urban growth in Las Vegas from 1984 to 2012.

The images were collected as part of an ongoing joint mission between the USGS and NASA called Landsat. Their satellites have been observing earth from space since the 1970s—with all of the images sent back to Earth and archived on USGS tape drives that look something like this example (courtesy of the USGS).