this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
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Those photos are from planes.
Probably, but the entire idea of "you can see it from space" is stupid anyways. Its only meaningful if its with the naked eye and the distance is specified. You can see anything from space if you have enough optical zoom...
Naw, there's theoretical a maximum resolution, iirc it's a few centimeters. Too much air in the way diffracting the light
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_KENNEN
Planes? I had always assumed it was satellites.
In the bottom middle of the screen it tells you the surveyor. At least it used to I haven’t checked in a while.
Satellites have adequate resolution for imaging large areas with high coverage, but aside of stuff like spy satellites they don't usually image smaller areas in high resolution all that well. Most of the closer up images on places like Google Maps are aerial photos.
I'm in Finland and when Google Maps first launched we only got low resolution satellite images and some aerial photos of a few cities. The difference was pretty clear.