On average satellite imagery in Google Earth is 3 years old so 5 is older than average. As strange as it sounds sometimes newer images may be in “Historical Imagery”. Google tries to get the “best” imagery for a given area so for example if clouds obsure the area and/or other reasons then an older image may be used rather than the latest image.
Why do some places on Google Maps have old images?
By old images you should be referring to either the place on Google Maps hasn’t been updated (with image) recently or you are looking at the image uploaded years ago. On the first option, it is something called Google Local Guides that keep updating Maps listing around the world.
One inquiry we ran across in our research was “How old are the satellite images on Google Maps?”.
Google Maps uses the same satellite information as Google Earth. Most of the images are 1 to 3 years old. You can visit Follow Your World – Home and find out when new imagery will be available for your location.
How do I view historical imagery on Google Earth?
Google Earth automatically displays current imagery. To see how images have changed over time, view past versions of a map on a timeline. Find a location. Click View Historical Imagery or, above the 3D viewer, click Time. You can zoom in or out to change the start and end dates covered by your timeline.
Another common inquiry is “Why doesn’t Google Earth have an imagery database on my computer?”.
The imagery databases are much too large to be maintained on any computer. The images are on Google servers and are streamed to your computer as you navigate around the globe. The version of Maps or Earth doesn’t matter.
You can see a large collection of imagery in Google Earth, including satellite, aerial, 3D, and Street View images. Images are collected over time from providers and platforms.
There are, however, two ways to view nearly real-time satellite images on Google Earth. For three-hour old weather images, look for the Clouds layer, found under the new Weather layer folder. NASA also has a layer called Daily. Planet which shows the entire Earth, continuously updated in real-time at a medium resolution.
Are Google Earth images real-time?
Although it is a common misconception that Google Earth images are real-time, they are not. There are, however, two ways to view nearly real-time satellite images on Google Earth.