What am I missing here?
My garden is 5 metres x 12 metres and even on the standard Google Maps satellite view you can see my garden shed, footpath, fruit trees and a 2m x 3m vegetable patch. Standard Google Earth will even show the 20cm x 40cm steps on my grass.
So why are we being shown these very low resolution satellite photos anytime anything is found? I know the operators of these satellites don't want to reveal capability but come on, I'm sure a resolution at least as good as to that of Google Maps is no big military or commercial secret.
Google maps pictures might be updated once a year; this is because it takes that long to get around a photographing every place of interest at high resolution. If you look at google maps images away from metro areas the resolution gets quite poor.
Trying to quickly cover huge areas of oceans that may never have been photographed before is challenging.