Back in 1977, Charles and Ray Eames made a short movie entitled ‘Powers of Ten‘, which Wikipedia describes like this:

It begins with a couple picnicking in a park; the view is that of one meter across. The viewpoint then slowly zooms out to a view ten meters across. The zoom-out continues, to a view of 100 meters, then 1 kilometer, and so on, increasing the perspective and continuing to zoom out to a field of view which is 10²⁶ meters, or the size of the observable universe.

Anyway, this is the spot in Chicago where the film began (although it doesn’t look quite the same these days), so you can re-create a bit of the film yourselves (Here’s a still from the film showing the starting point, and there’s lots of info on the official site).

You can also watch the whole film on Google Video.

Thanks to Mark Eichin.

Here at Google Sightseeing we’re big fans of structures that hold the title of “world’s largest something” and at 212 feet (65 meters) The Texas Star at Fair Park is the largest ferris wheel in the Western Hemisphere. The Texas Star opened in 1985 and has a maximum capacity of 260 persons (ground level shots).

Sadly there’s no high-res shots of the world’s largest ferris wheel, the Tempozan Harbor Village Ferris wheel in Japan.

Thanks: Chris & Jon

Telstra Stadium, formerly Stadium Australia was built to host the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. With a capacity to seat 110,000, the Sydney Olympic Stadium is the largest facility ever built for an Olympic Games.

Thanks: Glenn Slaven, Richard Totaro, Greg, Carson Diltz, Ben, Peter Bonnett, Tony Keeler, martin, Judy King & Martin Vivian

It’s a very common misconception that the great wall of china is the only man made object visible from space (sometimes others say from the moon, or from a satellite). Apparently the rumour started long before anyone had even been to space to check and in fact you can see a lot more man made objects than just the great wall (otherwise this website would be quite dull!).

So here it is, part of the great wall of china. Not very exciting is it? If you don’t believe me this Space Radar Image from NASA confirm that this is indeed a bit of the great wall (bear in mind that the NASA image is slightly rotated).

You can scroll east or west to follow the wall’s path, it goes on for 3,946 miles so you’ll probably get bored before it runs out

Thanks to LJS for the links

Here’s the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, because it’s been a while since we had a bridge. Er, I mean tunnel… no, wait, two bridges! Or is that two tunnels?

Frick.

The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel is a combination of two bridges and two tunnels, connecting Hampton and Norfolk in Virginia (I think that’s right anyway, but perhaps the Wikipedia entry can clear it all up for you).

Anyway, it’s pretty cool – lots of cars on there coming in and out of either end (or is that either middle?).

Oh sod this. I give up.

Thanks to Tiger, Brad, DanielMaui, John Drummond and Ben.