Not everyone can visit Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in person — but now you can go for a virtual tour from the comfort of your computer screen with Google Maps’ Street View.
The ocean collection, which was unveiled last week, includes fascinating 360-degree panoramas made from thousands of photos of the Great Barrier Reef, as well as views of five other amazing underwater spots — and their marine life residents — from Australia, Hawaii and the Philippines. It’s Google’s first underwater imagery, and they can be found on both Google Maps and Google Earth. (You can take a peek in the gallery below.)
Google’s partner, Catlin Seaview Survey, took 50,000 shallow-reef pictures using a specially designed SVII camera in a series of underwater expeditions. The maps also offer a deep-reef view, which has gorgeous images of areas that are rarely visited by people, captured using diving robots.
"This will allow the 99.9 percent of the population who have never been diving to go on a virtual dive for the first time," the survey’s project director, Richard Vevers, told NBC News.
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