I was looking up a business in Google Maps, and I came across what looks like a very, very shiny silver-red-tinted spot on the map in satellite view.
It’s in a parking lot and roughly car-shaped.
What would cause this “car” to not be a normal color like everything else on the map?
Is this a satellite optics issue?
Masking for privacy reasons?
The below in maps.google.com should bring it up for you:
4900 falls of the neuse blvd, Raleigh, NC 27609
It’s approximately 8 car-lengths northwest of the red “A” that gets displayed when you run the address.
I don’t think it’s a reflection of the sun from a horizontal truck roof, because what looks like sun reflections on the other vehicles occur on spots that run downhill toward the bottom of the image. But the white lidded UPS truck idea sounds believable. I think you can see a reddish brown area below the bright rectangle, like maybe the hood of the truck.
I have an excellent aerial of an area I have studied extensively, and in a wooded section there is a brilliant spot with some flare into neighboring pixels. Other aerials don’t show it. I hunted around and found an old bottle with flat sides sticking partway out of the ground within a few feet of where I thought the bright spot was. Don’t know if that is the answer, but it would be consistent with the idea that small but specular object can make a big spot on an aerial.
Could also be a cargo truck of the sort where the cargo area is wrapped up in a white blanket-like cover (often tied down with ropes)*; the cab of the truck is orange and facing screen-bottom; the ropes don’t get picked up because the pic resolution isn’t sufficient to show them.
The “cargo covered with blanket” theory is consistent with the lumpiness of the white area.
ETA: my GF says "that would be called a ‘tarp’ " :smack: