DAE is the file extension of COLLADA, the XML-based 3D asset exchange schema Sony and the Khronos Group standardized in the mid-2000s (ISO/PAS 17506). It stores scenes, geometry, materials, physics, and animation as human-readable XML. COLLADA was the neutral interchange format of its era, used by Google Earth and SketchUp models and early game pipelines, before glTF took over that role. A great deal of legacy content still ships as .dae, which is why every major DCC tool keeps an importer.
How to open
Blender (File > Import > Collada), SketchUp, Cinema 4D, and MeshLab open DAE directly. macOS Preview and Xcode render .dae natively (SceneKit's editor format). Because it is XML, any text editor shows the structure.