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Image Credit: Google Streetview Gallery

Google Maps has a remarkable new feature called Sea View that spotlights oceanic life and space. Sea View is essentially the marine version of Street View, a layer of Google Maps that allows users to navigate though 360-degree panoramic images of the Earth's surface. By extending the concept of Street View to the ocean floor, Google has added six coral reefs to the long list of cities, landmarks and parks users can currently explore remotely, from the comfort of their digital devices. The fascinating images captured so far by Google and its partner, Catlin Seaview Survey, bear out the imaginative quality of the overarching project. It's almost as if Sea View is Google's attempt to fulfill a common childhood fantasy: to experience what it would be like to live under the sea. With its zoomable and virtually traversable underwater imagery, Sea View enables adults and children alike to realize this wish (without having to worry about oxygen supply or the expense of travelling to distant coral reefs).