Moon in the Google Earth Plugin!
July 21st, 2009 | Published in Google Maps
This Monday, at the Newseum in Washington D.C., we unveiled Moon in Google Earth as the newest 3D-navigable celestial sphere, after Mars and Sky. Users can now explore some fantastic 3D terrain and imagery of the moon's surface, as well as exciting interactive media content about the Apollo missions and more, right in Google Earth!
Today, I'm glad to help commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing by announcing support for the moon in the Google Earth API. Just like with Mars, Earth API developers can now choose to show the moon upon instantiating the Google Earth Plugin. Here's a new demo, based on the original Monster Milktruck game, that you can check out to get a glimpse of Moon in the browser:
Lunar Rover
We've also added support for the Moon, Mars, and Sky to the KML embed and tour embed gadgets. Here's a quick demo of the fantastic Apollo 11 tour, created by Sean Askay, embedded in the browser using the touring gadget:
For those of you who don't currently have the plugin installed, here's what you're missing:
I hope that this new feature gives rise to some great new Moon mashups in the browser!