Over a seemingly dull field in California we find an unusual sight - a mid-air refuelling of a C-5 Galaxy by a smaller KC-135! Very, very cool.

The image ghosting is caused by the way satellite photographs are taken in two parts; one is high-resolution, but in black and white, and the other is a lower resolution but captures the colour. The second image is then sharpened with the first to create the colour images we see in Google Earth.

However, in the case of planes in flight, the plane has moved slightly between the two photographs. Now if we just knew how many milliseconds apart the two images are taken you could calculate the speed of the aircraft.

Thanks: Hoppilpolia, rob, chewbaccawokka, Ant, Frank and of course, Helomech from the Google Earth community.

Inspired by some posters I’ve seen recently advertising a rival mapping service, here’s the Rio-Antirio bridge which spans the Gulf of Corinth in Greece, which has the world’s longest cable-stayed suspended deck. It was completed in 2004 but is still under construction in these images. (Update: Turns out the bridge in the poster is actually the Vasco da Gama bridge in Lisbon, whoops! Thanks Geoff.)

Due to the movement of tectonic plates, the distance between land here is increasing at a rate of 30 mm per year. To accomodate this, the piers of the bridge are designed to slide, accomodating any expansion of the Gulf within the bridge’s lifetime.

There’s more at the WIkipedia page and at the official site, neither of which seem to be able to decide how to spell Rio[n]-Antir[r]io[n].

Thanks to Abigail Brady, Will, Bertrand Capo, dustin, Igor and Pille.