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Earth View is Google's answer to people who said opening a new tab in Chrome was not visually inspiring. They're out there, we swear. Google Maps

Want to see beautiful satellite pictures of the Earth every time you open up a new tab in Chrome? Of course you do, and Google knows it. So they released a Chrome browser extension Tuesday to do just that.

It’s officially called “Earth View From Google Maps,” but they could’ve just called it “You’re Welcome.” It’s the modern day, cubicle-dwelling version of stopping to smell the roses, and it’s available now.

The beauty of Earth View is its simplicity: Open a new tab, see a picture of a mountain range or tropical island chain from from one of Google Maps' satellite photos. The images are beautiful, and allow you to contemplate the beauty of existence, if only for a moment. They also open surprisingly fast, too, with no apparent lag on most modern machines.

If you didn't already know, extensions are simple add-ons that users can download to change the functionality of Chrome, or just about any browser. Personally, I use a bunch: one to add products from websites to my Amazon Wish List, one that puts tabs on “hold” and saves me a ton of memory (RAM), and another that allows me to control Chrome through a series of right-click mouse gestures that I should probably remove immediately.

Opening a new tab without the extension shows users a Google search box, which is unnecessary anyways as the entire address bar operates as one in Chrome. It currently shows a bunch of ugly thumbnails of your commonly-visited websites, but that's boring. And you can now click "Apps" in Earth View to get to a list of Chrome apps like Keep, Docs and Remote Desktop.

Which Chrome extensions do you think are the best? Let us know in the comments below.

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