Google Maps has released 40 new Street View photos to celebrate World Oceans Day, which was June 8.
Did you know you can explore the Great Barrier Reef from the comfort of your computer? It’s true, and now Google Street View has released even more “locations” for you to check out.
Most people know of Google Street View as a good way to explore the 360-degree surroundings of a given address, but usually that’s on the corner of a street. However, as is typical with Google, the company wanted to go a step further, and has provided an expansion of the tool that allows users to look around 20 spots in the Great Barrier Reef off Northwest Australia, according to Brisbane Times report.
The project was meant to mark World Oceans Day, which took place June 8. Other images from different locations, including Bali, the Bahamas, the Maldives, and even an Indonesian shipwreck, were also featured in the update.
Google obviously wasn’t able to use one of its iconic Street View cars to capture the images, so it partnered with XL Catlin Seaview Survey, as well as the National Marine Sanctuaries and the Chagos Conservation Trust.
Google’s Ocean Program is planning on looking in new underwater areas and documenting them as well, hoping to inspire others to learn more about an essential natural resource of the Earth, and perhaps educate them on changes in the ocean with new technologies that can document the state of the ocean today.
The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef system in the world. It incorporates 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands that stretch over a 133,000-square-mile area that is 1,400 miles long. It features an incrdible diversity of wildlife that is not seen anywhere else on the planet.