You can see the moon on Google Earth right now!

As Google Earth Blog mentioned on July 9th, Google will make a major announcement today in honor of the fortieth anniversary of Apollo 11 ’s landing on the moon. If you now (re-) run Google Earth, you can see the moon in 3D! Locate the small planet icon at the top in the middle of Google Earth, and you will see a new “Moon” item. The new moon in Google Earth turns a virtual globe into a three-dimensional display of the moon. The moon relief is shown in 3D, and there are layers telling you about the moon.

Here is my first screenshot of the new 3D Moon on Google Earth - showing the Apollo 11 landing site :


The first thing you should check out in the new Google Earth lunar mode is a terrific tour of Apollo 11,found in the layers under “Moon Gallery → Guided Tours → Apollo 11”. This tour is dictated by Andrew Chaiken and astronaut Buzz Aldrin , and this is one of the best illustrations for the Apollo 11 mission I've seen so far!

The official statement will not start until eleven in the morning. I will tweet about this event at  http://twitter.com/gearthblog . Wait for the rest in future blog posts today. Now restart Google Earth and look at the moon!