Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.
This is the Sunsphere in the 1982 World’s Fair Park, Knoxville, Tennessee. It’s a 266 foot high structure, topped with a 74 foot sphere made of bronze-coated reflective glass.
The Sunsphere was featured in the Simpson’s once (Nelson accidentally toppled it), and there’s even a “religion” based around the tower, known as the ‘Church of The Giant Golden Microphone‘.
Thanks: Les Jones, Graeme M, Adrian Likins, Jud White, Terry Foster, Janssen McCormick
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Link to specific places either as a Google Maps page or a decimal latitude and longitude written like this: lat/lng:55.949400,-3.200000.
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“But on the plus side, I did knock over the wigsphere!”
The angle that those photographs were taken, or the way in which the digital orthophotography rendering was done, makes me feel very dizzy; almost like I’m looking over the edge of a cliff.
Episode #3F17, “Bart on the Road”
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/3F17.html
I was at the 1982 World’s Fair (child singer in a traveling group…we had an “exhibit”). The tower is kind of cool. For me as a kid, the ski lift that took visitors from one side of the fair to the other was cooler.
Unfortunately, not much interesting has happened in Knoxville since.
The Sunsphere is weird. Even for a Knoxvillian. It’s emabarassing, cool, weird, and impressive all at the same time. Sometimes I drive past it and don’t notice it. Sometimes I notice it and it makes me dizzy. I wish they would put something up there.
I like beer.
That was also the Simpsons episode with… Diablo Canyon 1! Homer changes burnt out bulbs on the map of U.S. power plants.
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth