“With Timelapse in Google Earth, 24 million satellite photos from the past 37 years have been compiled into an interactive 4D experience.”
The imagery comes from NASA and USGS’s Landsat program and the EU’s Copernicus satellites, paid for by taxpayers and given away as open data. Google did the stitching and gets the headline. Watching glaciers retreat and cities sprawl over 37 years is genuinely striking. It is also the best argument for public science that a private company ever took credit for.