Google Street View, the interactive panorama feature within Google Maps, has shared eye images of Antarctica, disappeared at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, floated down rivers in the Amazon region and walked the halls of famous museums.Now the company is under water. The company Wednesday panoramic underwater images of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia added, the waters of Apo-islands in the Philippines and marine life around the Hawaiian Islands.

Stunning undersea panoramas now on Google Street View

The stunning photographs capture fish, plants, turtles and other sea creatures going about their business in distant oceans. Anyone can now have a compelling view of the sea without getting wet or worry about the bends. Zoom in to verify a manta ray's belly, participate in a school of fish or study intricate coral close.Stunning undersea panoramas now on Google Street View The photos are part of a partnership with the Catlin Seaview Survey, an ambitious project aimed at documenting the world reefs using high-resolution 360-degree images. Catlin working on a thorough archive reefs of the world that scientists can use to mitigate the effects of climate change to create study. Document reefs with photographs, it is possible to effect increased water temperatures and acidity will have on the areas determined time."If you want to millions of people around the world to reach the first place you knock on the door is Google," said Richard Vevers, project director of the Catlin Seaview Survey.The collaboration with Google (including a live Google Hangout with a diver and a sea turtle earlier this year), is an attempt to get people invested in the fate of these ecosystems and the role of the oceans play in the preservation of the planet to get. For the 99% of people who have never dived before, a panoramic photo is a lively introduction."It's about the introduction of the large number of people on this planet, the impact we have on the coral reefs," said Vevers. "Until we reefs and important ecosystem in the ocean that are relevant to people on the planet, we are not going to get action."Google has used cars, trikes, snowmobiles and people equipped with custom cameras to 360-degree shots in the world. For this project, the images taken by a camera specially designed for the Catlin Seaview Survey, SVII, whose design was inspired by sharks. The high speed camera with a tablet in waterproof housing, and records GPS data and the exact angle at which the photo was taken.For capturing images at greater depths, between 30 and 100 meters (about 98 to 328 feet), the group plans to send down special remotely operated vehicles equipped with remote-controlled digital single-lens reflex cameras. Almost 90% of the Great Barrier Reef is less than 30 feet of water.So far, the project has taken 15 000 panoramic pictures underwater, and each of these is made of three separate shots. They hope to between 50,000 and 100,000 panoramic photos have by the end of next year. Future sites will Bermuda, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Coral Triangle, an area where coral reefs until after the last ice age receded.Stunning undersea panoramas now on Google Street View Only the most interesting images are used for Google Maps, but everyone will be accessible to scientists through main page of the project site."One of the central concepts of this activity is to bring people on this jouney with scientists," says Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland.Street View (maybe Reefview?) Ocean project was first announced in February. Since its launch in 2007, Google Street View captured 20 petabytes of data in 48 countries. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that 95% of the ocean is still unexplored.