Teleported

I'm a world roamer. I spend half my time and earnings exploring the remote, strange, breathtaking places on our planet. I have been to more than 50 countries, 1,000 cities, but our planet is only too much bigger than I can explore with my own feet and eyes. So whenever I stay home, I keep roaming with my VR devices, on Google Maps. I couldn't express my admiration to a company like Google and its community with adequate words. There are so many brilliant travellers and true explorers sharing their immersive imageries on the platform, so that I can keep my vicarious roaming in the places I can not, dare not, or have not yet set foot in. But true gems are always rare and hard to find. So I decided to dedicate this account to share these coordinates and links to the finest immersive imagery that I've spent hundreds, thousands of hours discovering. You can click the links to open them directly in Google Maps, though a VR device is recommended to fully appreciate them. In any case, I will also share screenshots and some background knowledge. I hope this account proves valuable to you. And I sincerely hope you’ll share your own discoveries and comments here. To all the roaming spirits! That insatiable longing is in our blood, and it makes us human.

The "shimmer" of a hummingbird isn't actually caused by red or green pigment in their feathers. If you took a green hummingbird feather and crushed it, the resulting powder would just be a dull grey or brown. Instead, that brilliant iridescence is a feat of structural color and physics. The Science of "Thin-Film Interference" Hummingbird feathers contain microscopic structures called melanosomes—tiny, pancake-shaped platelets filled with air bubbles. When sunlight hits these layers, a phenomenon called thin-film interference occurs: 1.Light waves hit the top and bottom surfaces of these transparent layers. 2.Some waves reflect immediately, while others travel through the layer and reflect off the bottom. 3.As these waves bounce back, they "interfere" with each other. 4.Certain wavelengths (colors) are cancelled out, while others are dramatically amplified. Why Does the Color Change When They Move? This is the "magic" of iridescence. Because the light has to travel a specific distance through those microscopic layers to "glow," the color depends entirely on the angle of the observer. • Direct Angle: You get a full, brilliant flash of ruby or emerald. • Side Angle: The light waves shift, often making the bird look dull or even pitch black.

Iridescence of the male Anna’s Hummingbird

While deserts with striking red sand absolutely exist, these images pushes the saturation well beyond what you would see in person. In nature, sand can reach deep, vibrant hues of orange and red, but it rarely looks like a "solid" block of neon crimson. The color comes from a thin coating of iron oxide (rust) on the quartz grains. The longer the sand is exposed to the air without being disturbed, the more it "rusts," resulting in deeper colors.

Libyan Desert

Bahrain has grown over time through land reclamation. Earlier figures were closer to 665 km². Now it’s closer to 780+ km², about 1/10 the size of Corsica in France. Satellite image for a comparison of the size of this artificial archipelago with that of the entire country:

Weird fishes in front of their hooks. Durrat Al #Bahrain, 20 km² artificial archipelago created through massive land reclamation, almost four times larger than the famous Palm Jumeirah of #Dubai. 25°50'16.02"N 50°36'10.02"E (8K satellite imagery)

Clipperton is one of the most isolated islands on Earth. Just ~6 km² of land, surrounded by over 400,000 km² of ocean (EEZ, Exclusive Economic Zone of France), located ~1,000 km off the coast of Mexico. It’s directly administered by the French government (not part of any region like French Polynesia). In the early 1900s, a small Mexican colony lived there. After the Mexican Revolution, supply ships stopped arriving. Most inhabitants died of starvation or disease. The last survivors were rescued in 1917. It’s one of the most tragic isolation stories in modern history.

This is France. #Clipperton Island, uninhabited coral atoll in the eastern Pacific Ocean, 10,675 km from Paris. Immersive aerial view (by Nodir Tursun-Zade): maps.app.goo.gl/NGyN1uoe79iPrt… 10°18'07.7"N 109°13'03.9"W 8K satellite imagery below.

@amazing_physics The Americans are really great, achieving this even with the shittiest president!!

Get Ready.. Prepare yourself to witness history unfold right before your eyes! 🚀 For the first time ever, the entire Orientale Basin, a massive and mysterious region on the Moon’s surface, has been fully captured thanks to the efforts of NASA’s Artemis II crew. This remarkable achievement marks a huge step forward in space exploration, revealing a breathtaking new view of our celestial neighbor. The clarity and detail in this historic image are absolutely stunning! 🌕🛰️ As we move further into space, it reminds us of the endless wonders still waiting to be discovered.

The name, unfortunately, is as anti poetic as it gets: Waw an Namus (واو الناموس) literally translates to the "Oasis of Mosquitoes" or "Crater of Mosquitoes."

The reason the ash ring around Waw an Namus is so huge compared with the crater itself comes down to how the eruption happened and the nature of the desert environment: Phreatomagmatic eruptions Waw an Namus is thought to have erupted in a phreatomagmatic style, meaning magma interacted violently with water—likely from underground aquifers. When hot magma meets water, it explodes into fine ash instead of forming just lava flows. This spreads a wide, thin layer of volcanic debris far from the vent, creating a ring much bigger than the central cone. Wind and desert environment The Sahara’s winds likely pushed and spread the ash over a large area. Because the area is very dry, the ash doesn’t get washed away, so it remains in place for hundreds of thousands of years. Low eruptive cone but wide dispersal The central cone inside the crater is relatively small, so most of the erupted material was thrown outward, forming the huge circular field. Over time, erosion has mostly removed loose material inside the crater but left the strongly consolidated ash ring intact. Unusual size ratio Most volcanoes have a cone that dominates the landscape, but Waw an Namus is unusual because the eruption spread energy and material outward instead of building up a massive central mountain. That’s why satellites see it as a giant black ring with a small crater inside.

The giant black eye of the Sahara. Waw an Namus, deep in the desert of southwestern Libya, a volcanic crater surrounded by a black ring of volcanic ash that stretches nearly 20 km across. Surreal immersive view: maps.app.goo.gl/kqPYqmPRoAieCt… 24°53'26.8"N 17°44'15.3"E (Imagery by Giulio Aprin)

@menavisualss An immersive experience here:

Nouadhibou, Mauritania 🇲🇷

@KoltaineJudit Take a closer, immersive look here:

Nuup Kangerlua, Greenland

Kiribati is the only country (without taking the overseas territories into account) that sits north, south, east, and west at the same time. The Equator runs through it. The 180° meridian (International Date Line area) also crosses it. So technically, you can stand in different hemispheres without leaving the country. Kiribati has 33 coral atolls and reef islands, but they are scattered across 3.5 million km² of ocean. That’s roughly the size of India—yet the land area is tiny.

It’s not very far from Paris, Poland, and… Banana.

This is London. Downtown. Kiribati, 1°59'4.79"N 157°28'32.32"W

@theepicmap And you will find London, Paris, not far from Banana😂

TIL Kiribati is the only country in the world to be in the Northern, Southern, Easten and Western hemisphere - i.e all the hemispheres.

@MexicanBrett @earthcurated I believe that Jesus was a true historical figure, and his crucification was a overwhelming accepted historical fact. But that doesn’t mean that his resurrection and ascension were “therefore” historical facts.

@MexicanBrett @earthcurated Muslims believe that it was not Jesus who got crucified. So actual historical event is actually not that actual.

Nearly 2,000 years ago today, Jesus Christ gave His life on the cross in Jerusalem.

The famous "Curse" Section concludes with a long list of terrifying curses aimed at anyone who might try to move the stone, erase the writing, or claim the land for themselves. It calls upon the gods to strike down the offender with illness, famine, or misfortune. "May Sin, the great lord, with leprosy as with a garment clothe his body, so that he may dwell by the wall of his city!" "May Nabu, the exalted son, the establisher of the month and of the year, shorten his days, so that he have no posterity!"  "May the lady Gula cause her burden of sickness to come upon him, so that while he lives, dark and bright blood he may pass like water!" "May Marduk, the king of the gods, look upon him in anger, and his name and his seed may he cause to disappear!"

This blackened limestone monument is known as a kudurru, an ancient Babylonian boundary stone that served as both a legal contract and a divine warning. Carved over three thousand years ago, it whispers tales of a time when the land was not just soil, but a sacred gift from a king to a loyal subject. The upper registers are crowded with celestial symbols and mythical beasts—the horned crown of Anu, the goat-fish of Enki, and the coiled serpent—each representing a god summoned to witness the transaction. For the ancient people, these carvings were not merely decorative; they were eternal sentinels. Beneath the imagery, the meticulous cuneiform script details the land's dimensions and the terrifying curses awaiting anyone who dared to move the stone. To touch this stone is to feel the weight of human ambition and the desperate desire for permanence. It stands as a haunting bridge between the fleeting lives of men and the enduring silence of the gods.

@Hana_b30 Before the rain:

Diphylleia grayi, the beautiful “skeleton flower” that turns transparent when it rains and reverts to white when dry.

@QueenDM77 @earthcurated Who's Jesus alive today?

@_teleported @earthcurated Science points me even more to the Lord! Jesus was real and is alive today! God Bless.

Look at the shadows even in this satellite photo!

Burj Khalifa, #Dubai (immersive panoramic imagery uploaded by Gleb Osipov). A magnificent perspective to witness the hubris of human beings. maps.app.goo.gl/AvszfGyk5xRKa2… I have been on the 125th floors. But hovering mid-air in front of it is only next-level sensation.

The incredible part: Loose sand is naturally unstable — engineers must turn it into ground solid enough to support buildings, roads, and utilities. Engineers use techniques like: Vibro-compaction (shaking the ground until sand grains rearrange into a denser structure). Deep compaction and layering.

The entire development is designed to resemble a necklace of pearls, echoing Bahrain’s historic pearl-diving culture. Well, the resemblance is to be discussed. Millions of cubic meters of sand were dredged from the seabed to create 15 artificial islands. The full project was planned to house tens of thousands of people, essentially forming a new coastal city rather than just a resort. A closer look (8K satellite imagery).