I wonder how these girls feel about being half naked for all the world to see on Google Street View?

Does anyone know who they are?

Update: I’ve just realised that for most of these Street View sights, you can move down the street a little and change your perspective on things.

This will likely mean absolutely nothing to many of our younger readers but… look, it’s the cul-de-sac from Knots Landing!

For any of you young enough to have never heard of this show; Knots Landing was a popular night time soap opera that began in 1979, and ran all the way until 1993. Weirdly though, in nearly 30 years the cul-de-sac doesn’t seem to have changed much at all!

See also our posts on Neighbours, Eldorado and Emmerdale and Coronation St & Eastenders.

Thanks to Mike.

This is the incredible Solar Project in the Mojave desert, California. Originally conceived as Solar One, this was the first test of a large scale thermal solar power tower power plant, and you can clearly make out the tower’s shadow here.

It became Solar Two when a second ring of heliostats was added, making a total of 1926 heliostats with a total area of 82,750m². The idea is that the heliostats track the movement of the sun and focus the light onto the central tower, which stores the heat in molten salt.

Apparently Solar Two had the ability to produce 10 megawatts of power by redirecting the equivalent of 600 suns!

Solar Two was decommissioned in 1999, and was converted into an Air Cherenkov Telescope in 2001 (which measures gamma rays hitting the atmosphere), but there are currently plans underway to build Solar Tres in Spain.

Thanks to russ, Scott Ventura and Gesh.

This is the 30-metre wide satellite dish of the Jamesburg Earth Station. Originally built in 1968 to support the Apollo 11 moon landing, the Earth Station was shut down in 2002 and put up for sale.

It was subsequently bought by a group of Ham-radio geeks, who spent several months restoring it – and in February they actually got it working, bouncing 20 radio signals off the moon.

There’s a great ground-level shot at the official site, and it was Aviation Week that published the original story.

Thanks to jher via Boing Boing.

There are about 80 known whale species around the globe, the largest of which is of course the Blue Whale, which can measure up to a massive 30m long.

Such a giant beast should easily be visible on the aerial and satellite photographs of Google Earth, it’s just a matter of finding them…

To start with, there’s definitely a blue whale in this Japanese swimming pool, but I don’t think that counts.

The Route 66 landmark Blue Whale slide is so famous it even appeared in Sega’s King of Route 66 video game. More info.

Outside of UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory there’s an 85-foot long Blue Whale skeleton. The female whale was washed ashore of Pescadero Beach in 1979, after dying of unknown causes.

We’ve still not found any live whales though! Off the coast of Santa Barbara there’s a 10m long grey blob that could resemble a whale, or more likely a shark. Either way it would have to be very close to the surface to be seen so easily. I’m not convinced.

‘Reverence‘ is a sculpture by Jim Sardonis, which depicts two whales seemingly diving into the grass. The tails are each 12-13 foot tall and made of granite. More info.

Back in Japan, and Ueno Park has more than tails – there’s a life size Blue Whale diving into the ground. More info.

And finally, to Argentina, where there could just be real whales.

According to whale expert wildslide these are southern right whales who breed in this area during the months of May and October. Success!

Previously on Google Sightseeing: Whales! and Beached Whale

Thanks: The many people who thought they saw a whale, including: Jonathan_Tronson, FrequentFlyer, danescombe, bagabnoosh, kjfitz, Ralph Mettier, Nick, Jim Morton, Andrew, Rking, Yoshino, Barb, Caraurta, danescombe, Todd Pearson, Andrea from Italy, Nichole, James, A30 & John Hartnup