Google has released its latest update to Google Earth which incorporates several new features to view, including the three dimensional (3D) renderings of the ocean floor, historical satellite imagery and maps of Mars. This is the first update to Google Earth since the 4.3 version.

Google Earth 5.0 is available to everyone on Google's website. You can take a plunge in the Mariana Trench, the deepest location in the seven seas; you can also let yourself roll back the years, showing what areas such as Paris and London looked like 5 or even 50 years ago (a more disturbing aspect of this allows you to watch glaciers shrink); and provide a three-dimensional (3D) view of the Martian surface. The Mars project, which was implemented in conjunction with NASA, is intended both for casual investigation of our planetary next-door neighbor, as well as serious research. NASA and Google hope scientists and other researchers will use the new Google Earth Mars feature to share data about the fourth rock from the sun. The mode enables users to fly virtually through enormous canyons and scale huge mountains on Mars that are much larger than any found...