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A recent story in the news says that Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has asked Google to blur imagery of some military structures on Itu Aba Island (also known as Taiping Island) in the South China Sea.

The South China Sea is a hotly contested area with several countries, most notabley China, building structures on the reefs of the Spratleys. We had a look at the progress last year and had a look at the latest imagery of Fiery Cross Reef in June this year.

As we have discussed before, censoring satellite imagery is more difficult than censoring other data. A number of countries censor aerial data, mapping data and 3D imagery and because those are often gathered within the countries in question, Google must comply with local laws. But satellite imagery is more difficult to censor. I has been done. It is illegal in the US to publish high resolution imagery of Israel, and Google is a US company so Israel appears in relatively low resolution in Google Maps and Google Earth. Also, imagery updates were stopped for Iraq, Afghanistan, the Ukraine and Syria although we do not know exactly how that was accomplished.

Back to this particular case, if the story is correct and if that was the only facility that Taiwan asked Google to censor, then it would appear they made a serious error. The result has been that many news outlets have published the imagery and it is now not only practically impossible to get rid of all those images, but it has become an object of attention. In addition, Google will be very unlikely to agree to censor it unless legal pressure can be brought to bear. If they were to censor it, a lot of people will notice, and it will become another news story, and then a lot of other countries will want their censorship requests to be honoured as well.

Another question would be who Taiwan wishes to hide the imagery from. Even if Google removed the image, it could still be purchased from the supplier Digital Globe, or imagery of the location could be ordered from various other commercial suppliers. A number of states also have their own spy satellites and the countries most interested in the region could probably capture aerial imagery of it if they wished.

The image that Taiwan wants censored is dated July 8th, 2016 and can only be seen in the default layer as it has not yet (as of this writing) been put in historical imagery.

The military structure in question can be seen below:

We have also created an animation showing that the airport was built since 2006 and the harbour is also being expanded.

Speed in milliseconds per image:

The post Taiwan wants Google to censor satellite imagery appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

In the past we have looked at an island that doesn’t exist, islands being formed, islands combining to form a bigger island and a disappearing islet. Today we are looking at how China is turning reefs into islands.

A couple of months ago there was a story about China building an Airport and other military installations in the Spratley Islands. However, at the time, the relevant satellite imagery was not available in Google Earth. In April, [Google added imagery for most of the Spratley islands, but not the most interesting one – Fiery Cross Reef. However, Google did add it during May, so now we can have a look at it.

For more on the story and detailed analysis of what can be seen in the imagery see this story, which covers activity throughout the Spratley islands, and this one that focuses on the airport on Fiery Cross Reef.

Fiery Cross Reef – an airport and harbour being constructed.

Johnson South Reef – buildings and harbour being constructed.

Hughes Reef – buildings and harbour being constructed.

Gaven Reef – buildings and harbour being constructed.

Cuarteron Reef – buildings and harbour being constructed.

Mischief Reef – land reclamation just starting.

Subi Reef – land reclamation just starting.

We highly recommend looking at the locations in Google Earth as there is plenty to see. To find them, download this KML file.

Also interesting is that several of the images have too much red, which looks especially bad where there is land. We believe this is colour correction gone wrong as a result of the strong blues and greens of the ocean.

The post China building islands in the Spratlys appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Back in 1973, a volcanic eruption in the western Pacific ocean caused the formation of a new island named Nishino-shima. Four months ago, a nearby eruption caused the formation of a new island named Niijima. The Niijima eruption has continued and the island has been growing and has now consumed Nishino-shima and it is continuing to grow larger.

It’s quite a look at the birth of an island. From the NASA Earth Observatory site:

The Niijima portion of the island is now larger than the original Nishino-shima, and the merged island is slightly more than 1,000 meters across. Two cones have formed around the main vents and stand more than 60 meters above sea level, triple the highest point of the island in December. Volcanic lava flows are reported to be most active now on the south end of the island.

For more, check out the full article on the NASA Earth Observatory site or visit the Japan Coast Guard page to see aerial photographs of the island.

The post Pacific eruption turns two islands into one appeared first on Google Earth Blog.