Nasa.gov 9/5/2005: “Nearly 13 billion years ago, an early massive star explodes. The light from the explosion, called a gamma-ray burst, traverses the Universe. On September 4, 2005, the NASA Swift satellite detects the burst and notifies scientists of its location.” Think about that headline from NASA for a moment. Scientists were actually able to watch the unfolding of an event that occurred 13 billion years ago. It raises a question about the attributes of time. Since we can watch the event now, does that mean that our time is 13 billion years old? Or does it mean the explosion is happening in our present and simultaneously in the stars past? Very interesting no matter how one looks at it.
Did you know that we can also look deep (not 13 billion years deep) into our local past? It is amazing how fast our memories fade when thinking about our recent past. Do you remember all the buildings, stores and businesses that were here only two or three years ago? I took a little trip to the past and kept hearing myself say, “That’s right, I remember that now.” Our computers are like little time machines. They can allow us to peer into the recent past. So if history is of interest to you, fire up the PC and take a trip down memory lane.
First, make sure that your computer meets the minimum requirements as listed at http://earth.google.com/faq.html. Odds are that any computer less than five years old will have no problems. If you are one of the four people still running Windows 98 then this jaunt to the past is beyond the capabilities of your time machine.
Next, point your browser to earth.google.com. Download and install Google Earth. Open the program and the first thing seen is a picture of the world floating in space. On the left hand side are some controls that allow you to “fly to” a starting spot. In my case I typed in 33950 and hit the button. For a moment I thought I was falling straight to the ground but then it seemed to level out just sixteen miles above Punta Gorda. On the upper right hand corner of the picture is a control console built something like a heads up display in a fighter aircraft. There is a zoom and tilt feature and you can also move the map by simply grabbing it with the mouse and sliding it up or down, left or right.
I choose to zoom in on the Gilchrist and Collier bridges. That’s when it dawned on me that I was looking into the past. There on the north east corner of the bridges was a hotel and antique mall. “That’s right, I remember that now,” and behind that was an empty lot where today stands a large condominium complex. Further up the road off Harbor stands the American Legion Hall that doesn’t look anything like what is there now. Further up Harbor is a giant tree standing along side a buddy of mine’s house that today is laying on its side. Back on Tamiami Trail there are lots of stores and office buildings that can not be found today.
One of the coolest features of Google Earth though is the directions feature. Plug in a starting and ending point and it lays out the route on the maps. Then click on the play feature and it follows the course as if you were sitting in a small plane about 1500 feet above the ground. It can show hotels, restaurants etc along the way.
Google tells us “Our images are photographs taken by satellites and aircraft sometime in the last three years. The images in Google Earth are updated on a rolling basis. (Martha, no sunbathing au natural.) Google Earth combines data of different resolutions to offer a seamless viewing experience, and some locations may look a bit blurry. We offer high resolution imagery (greater than 1-meter per pixel which provides an aerial view of approximately 1500 feet) for thousands of cities and more are on the way.” Now Google Earth allows us to dive beneath the oceans as well to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench.
Probably the best thing about Google Earth is that it is FREE. There is a pay version that incorporates GPS features, but the imagery is the same.
I’ll see you in the past!
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