Google’s latest project with NASA, Times and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) allows you to view time lapses of aerial photos – it’s a pretty animated, interactive time-lapse. The joint venture started in 2009 to cover every inch of the earth. In the process, the team ” sifted through 2,068,467 images—a total of 909 terabytes of data” and the results are high quality images devoid of clouds whenever possible.

Built from millions of satellite images and trillions of pixels, you can explore this global, zoomable time-lapse map as part of TIME’s new Timelapse project. View stunning phenomena such as the sprouting of Dubai’s artificial Palm Islands, the retreat of Alaska’s Columbia Glacier, the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon and urban growth in Las Vegas from 1984 to 2012.

When I tried using Google’s Timelapse webpage, it was too busy to load, so these gifs ought to give you an idea of the results.