Google Earth is one of the coolest applications ever invented. It combines satellite and aerial photographs of almost the entire planet with an easy-to-use interface that lets the user zoom in and out, tilt and rotate the view... even add 3-D renderings of buildings in most major American cities! Users can also overlay a vast array of data onto the map, such as street names, political divisions, US Census data, US zip code boundaries, US congressional districts, crime statistics, World Heritage Sites, restaurants, ATMs, grocery stores, national parks, golf courses, schools, hospitals... and on and on and on. It's a really awesome program!

The program is so awesome, in fact, that it has its own fan base! Many folks use Google Earth for what's called "Google Sightseeing". Some folks have particular interests - like trainspotters - while others simply wander the virtual globe, checking out beaches in Thailand, coral reefs in Australia and Incan ruins... all without having to leave the home! Some sites have even hosted "Google Earth Scavenger Hunts": the site provides a picture of an unusual building or geographic feature, and the site's users are then tasked with finding out where on the globe the building or feature is.

Check out some of the great things found on Google Earth:

From somewhere in England:

Also from England:

There's a special group of Google Earthsters that use the program to look for airplanes. They typically start at an airport to see what's on the runway, then zoom out to see if they can spot any planes in the air in the immediate area. Sometimes, though, planes are spotted by pure chance, as was the case with this classic, WWII-era Lancaster Bomber spotted flying over England:

You're going to have mistakes with any program that attempts to present maps and data for the entire globe. But you'd think the Google Guys would at least get the basics right! Below is a picture of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, UK. The Observatory is home to the Prime Meridian - zero degrees longitude. This is where all time "starts" (hence "Greenwich Mean Time"). But there's a slight problem with Google's data here. The yellow line in the picture is where Google says the Prime Meridian is. Unfortunately, this is off by several hundred yards. The Prime Meridian actually runs through the observatory itself - in the picture, it's the barely visible grey line next to the thin black line that runs from the tree just below the words "Royal Observatory" to the building with N51 28' 40.08" on it. Google's picture also appears to be several years old, as the tree has been replaced with a sculpture (or has been seriously pruned down), as seen in this picture of Lisa standing on the Prime Meridian itself.

Several Australian Google Earthsters have reported seeing mysterious "flying cars" in Google Earth maps of the area of Perth, Australia's fourth largest city. The car(s) appear to be floating in the air, unsupported by any type of device. They also seem to appear in well-populated areas (like parking lots), yet seem to attract no attention. They could be inflatable models of cars, yet they don't appear anywhere near what appears to be a car lot. Check it out:

What do you think is the story behind these flying cars?

UPDATE: Already have Google Earth? You can download the KMZ files for all of the above pictures by clicking here. Don't have Google Earth? You can download it here (it's free), or you can wait a while... Google Maps will support KMZ files in the very near future.