Today is Earth Day, a global observance started by US Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1970 as a nationwide protest intended to thrust the environment onto the political agenda. Considered the birth of the modern environmental movement, the continuing mission of Earth day is to raise awareness of and appreciation for the Earth’s environment.

Hundreds of millions of people in around 175 countries will be taking part in events which have been organised at every corner of the globe, and you lot don’t get out of doing your part either! Show your support for Earth day and leave a comment with a link to a globe of the earth, somewhere on Google Earth - like this great big one in Berlin.

Check out the The Earth Day Network website for more information, and thanks to Tom Hooten for our starter globe.

In an incredible stroke of luck, this image of Potsdam, Germany was captured at exactly the same moment by both Google Earth and I Can Has Cheezburger!

Ladies and gentlemen I give you, HOVEROCEROS!

(If you haven’t got a clue what we’re on about, hopefully this should help!)

Thanks to sladys and I Can Has Cheezburger.

Just outside of Kelkar in Germany lies a huge nuclear reactor that was ultimately never taken online. The SNR-300 ‘Fast Breeder’ (a neutron reactor that creates more fuel than it uses) was needed since Germany has a limited supply of uranium and wanted to limit imports.

However, by the mid eighties, the disaster at Chernobyl and other political issues meant that development effectively stalled - the building was finished, but none of the radioactive materials were there; the government abandoned it, and the German taxpayer was effectively left with a concrete shell costing 3.5 billion euros.

When a dutch businessman bought the complex in 1995, he decided to turn it into a hotel and amusement park - ‘Kernwasser Wunderland’, which translates rather unappealingly to ‘Nuclear Water Wonderland.’ By far the coolest activity in my eyes has to be the ability to both go inside and free climb up the huge painted cooling tower.

Despite the obvious stigma of holidaying at a Nuclear Power plant, over half a million people visit annually. And if you still have a nagging worry, you can be reassured by their slogan - “this whole complex guaranteed free of radiation!”

Find out more about the facility at AskOxford and Wikipedia.

Thanks to Buuts!

Today is Easter Sunday, and it is the earliest Easter we’ve had since 1913.

In fact, it’s almost the earliest possible date for Easter, which via a very complex calculation falls between March 22nd and April 25th (inclusive). The last time Easter fell on March 22nd was 1818, and it will not do it again until 2285, so unless you’re still around in 2160 for the next March 23rd Easter, today is the earliest Easter of your lifetime.

So to celebrate, we’re found some giant Easter eggs.

Mainau is a private island on the German side of Lake Constance. The island is run as a garden visitor attraction which often features seasonal flower arrangements, and last April they had these large easter eggs in the courtyard.

There’s a ground level picture on Flickr. You can also bore your family to tears with the details on how to calculate Easter and even a date distribution graph over at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Nick.

A man and a woman, right? Which one’s which though? And the most important question of all… are they really naked?

Thanks to Christian Stüben.

Yesterday, 27th January, various countries celebrated Holocaust Memorial Day, which is dedicated to remembering the victims of the Holocaust.

27th January was chosen as it was the date on which Auschwitz was liberated in 1945. The concentration camp is not currently covered by high resolution imagery but you can see archive aerial shots as Google Earth overlays.

In 2004 the monument to the murdered Jews of Europe was established in the centre of Berlin. The monument is over 19,000 m², the entirety of which is covered with 2,711 concrete slabs of various heights. Between the slabs the ground slopes about unevenly, and there is no predefined path through the monument.

An underground museum below the monument holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims and a quote above the entrance reads:

“It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say”.

Further information on the monument on Sacred Destinations.

Thanks: Chris Westbrook, Stephan Gajewski, Leon el africano and David Boardman

Between the cities of Lathen and Dörpen, Germany, lies the Emsland Transrapid Test Facility - a 31.5 km long elevated track built to test trains propelled by magnetic levitation - a form of transportation that suspends, guides and propels vehicles using electromagnets to keep them floating just above the tracks.

The trains developed here have only been put into commercial operation once, between Pudong International Airport and Shanghai, but they’ve achieved speeds in excess of 500 km/h during testing, and in normal operation have a maximum speed of 431 km/h (268 mph).

The test track consists of two huge loops, one at Dörpen which is connected to the other at Lathen, and on the day these images were taken, a Transrapid is visible on the northern loop. Looks like it might be going pretty fast too.

Sadly the first ever fatal accident involving a Maglev train occurred at Lathen in September 2006, when a Transrapid train collided with a maintenance vehicle, killing 23 people.

Read more at Wikipedia about Magnetic levitation, Magnetically levitating trains, the Transrapid system, the Emsland test facility, the 2006 Lathen maglev train accident and the Shanghai Maglev Train.

Thanks to Winchester, Jan Brasna

Here we see Germany’s Burgplatz, which is absolutely swarming with people. Or, more specifically, very orange people!

The overwhelming orange-ness of the crowd can only mean they are fans of the Dutch football team, who were gathered in the square during last year’s World cup.

The Netherlands national team was knocked out in the second round by Portugal, so this Dutch celebration probably coincides with their one-nil win over Serbia and Montenegro in the nearby Zentralstadion on June 11th, 2006.

Thanks to McMaster_de