Google Earth is Spying On Me! Trivia Quiz

Answer: CIA

Keyhole, Inc. was founded in 2001 and was originally funded by Sony, NVIDIA, and In-Q-Tel, the venture capital front company for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Keyhole's premiere application was called EarthViewer. In 2004, the company was bought by Google and became the foundation for Google Earth. Keyhole was named after the KH reconnaissance satellites, the original military spy satellites operated by the CIA from 1959 to 1972.

Answer: Invasion of Iraq

The beginning of the Iraq War with the invasion of Iraq by US and allied forces made a star out of Keyhole's EarthViewer program as news networks such as CCN, ABC, and CBS used the 3D images it provided to cover the war. According to a March 21, 2003 "USA TODAY" article, when CNN flashed the website for EarthViewer on the screen, users overwhelmed the site and it crashed.

Answer: F-16

The F-16 Fighting Falcon simulator allows a user to fly at speeds up to Mach 2 or over 1500 miles an hour. It takes off at 225 knots (258 mph/416 kph) and lands at 200 knots (230 mph/370 kph). It can reach altitudes of 40,000 ft. There are also overlays available to make the screen look like the cockpit of the jet.

Since its introduction, the flight simulator continues to expand and now includes the ability to fly helicopters. Other planes can be added to your program, working off of the two basic ones in the simulator.

Answer: Cirrus

Google Earth's flight simulator features the Cirrus SR22. Compared to the F-16 it is a much slower plane with a take-off speed of 75 knots (86 mph/139 kph) and a landing speed of 70 knots (80 mph/130 kph). The top speed for the plane is 219 knots (252 mph/405 kph) and it has a ceiling of 25,000 ft. There are also overlays available to make the screen look like the cockpit of the plane.

Cirrus clouds are thin, wispy clouds that form in altitudes above 16,500 ft in temperate regions and above 20,000 ft in tropical regions. They usually come in advance of other weather phenomena and so indicate that the weather is most likely about to deteriorate.

Answer: Soyuz satellites

Soyuz is the former Soviet Union (now Russian) space agency and plays no role in Google Sky or in the Sky feature of Google Earth. As with most features in Google Earth, the feature is available both in Google Earth and as a standalone called Google Sky.

The visible data comes from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Hubble Space Telescope. The x-ray data comes from NASA's Chandra satellite, the ultraviolet from NASA's GALEX satellite, the infrared from a joint NASA, Netherlands and UK Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) and the microwave sky from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite. (Source: google.com - the about page for Sky)

Answer: Street View

Google Street View is featured both in Google Earth and Google Maps. The feature allows a panoramic 360-degree, street-level view of over 49 cities around the world, including cities in the US, Australia, Japan, France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Germany, Russia, and New Zealand among others.

Answer: Rome

On November 12, 2008, Google Earth launched its Ancient Rome gallery that allows a user to view the city in 3D detail as it would have appeared in 320 AD. The feature was developed by the Rome Reborn Project, a joint project between "the Virtual World Heritage Laboratory of the University of Virginia (VWHL), the UCLA Experiential Technology Center (ETC), the Reverse Engineering (INDACO) Lab at the Politecnico di Milano, the Ausonius Institute of the CNRS and the University of Bordeaux-3, and the University of Caen." (Source: the Rome Reborn website "about" page from virginia.edu)

Answer: Mars

Google Mars was first a feature of Google Maps but is now also a feature of Google Earth. The data was collected in conjunction with NASA scientists at the Mars Space Flight Facility located at Arizona State University and includes data from two Mars missions - Mars Global Surveyor and 2001 Mars Odyssey. Users can switch between visible, elevation, and infrared data.

Answer: One failed to actually land on the moon

Google Moon was originally launched as a standalone but now is included as part of Google Earth. The landing sites and missions specifics of Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 appear in the feature. Apollo 13 does not appear because the spacecraft had technical problems and never landed on the moon, although it was scheduled to. Google Moon has three modes - the Apollo Mode, the Visible Mode, and an Elevation Mode.

The Visible Mode contains data collected from the Clementine mission.

Answer: Yes

Google Earth has a feature that allows a user to travel under the earth's oceans and also the Great Lakes and Lake Baikal. Not all of the data is available for every part of the ocean but the highest resolution data was provided by oceanographers from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Users can explore Cousteau's Ocean World, Shipwrecks, Dive Spots, Underwater Terrain, the Great Lakes and many other data collections.