Where to See Free Satellite Images

Satellite images were initially the exclusive realm of military and government agencies.

Soon, satellite images became commercially available, at very steep prices.

Now, technology has improved to the point where satellite images are available so inexpensively that they are now provided to end users for free.

Free Satellite Images on the Web

The best and by far the most popular source of web-based free satellite images is Google Maps. This product can be directly used from the web browser.

In addition to the pure satellite view, Google Maps lets you choose a hybrid view, which superimposes street names and landmarks over the satellite images. This popular application is integrated by many other web-based software packages for the purpose of showing maps of local businesses and residential areas.

One remarkable feature of Google Maps is that of driving directions. It is possible to get to know the easiest route between places not just inside cities, but also via highways, complete with the landmarks that you will have to pass by.

Bing Maps and Terrafly use aerial photography to provide services similar to those of Google Maps.

You can obtain excellent satellite images taken by the NASA Earth Observatory. The stunning images are classed under various categories and are available for free on their website.

Free Satellite Images on your PC

Google Earth is a desktop software application for Microsoft Windows that provides free satellite images, and other features very similar to that of Google Maps. The software has to be downloaded and installed on a PC, which will then connect to Google’s database and retrieve high resolution images of any part of the world.

Images already downloaded by Google Earth can be viewed even when you are offline.

The key advantage of Google Earth is that you can easily measure areas and distances and use your own input data.