Entire Planet Earth & Atmosphere As Seen From Space

a !
http://search-engines-web.com/

Could this be one of the most intriguing photographs ever taken?

Makes us see how far we've come - yet how small we are.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/modis_wonderglobe_lrg.jpg

cornelius

wow beautiful! no sign of human civilization to be seen

im subscribed myself to the earth observatory thru google homepage widget

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

a ! wrote:
Could this be one of the most intriguing photographs ever taken?

Makes us see how far we've come - yet how small we are.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/modis_wonderglobe_lrg.jpg

That's not a photograph.

It has the hallmarks of a rendering of a textured sphere.

EDIT: It's a shot from the "WonderGlobe" project. Essentially Google Earth on steroids. So no, it's not a photo. The "atmosphere" layer you see is just something to hide the artifacts that come with rendering spheres. It's a common technique in games too.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

It always strikes me as odd how unnaturally blue the waters in the caribbean look. It's this really intense azure, and it's completely out of place with the rest of the world. Weird.

SlackmasterK
I write my OWN blogging engines

Ahh, finally, an image of Earth that's high-res enough to use as a wallpaper. Fake is okay as long as it looks real; though I did have to photoshop it a bit. I cropped out a 4096x512 area over North America and stretched it out to my full desktop size of 8200x1050. Still, minimal pixelation and is niiice (read with Borat accent)!

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

SlackmasterK wrote:
Ahh, finally, an image of Earth that's high-res enough to use as a wallpaper. Fake is okay as long as it looks real; though I did have to photoshop it a bit. I cropped out a 4096x512 area over North America and stretched it out to my full desktop size of 8200x1050. Still, minimal pixelation and is niiice (read with Borat accent)!

Nasa's got nicer high-res shots of Mars' surface. Check out Space.com too.

Dharma Punk

W3bbo wrote:

a ! wrote:Could this be one of the most intriguing photographs ever taken?

Makes us see how far we've come - yet how small we are.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/modis_wonderglobe_lrg.jpg

That's not a photograph.

It has the hallmarks of a rendering of a textured sphere.

EDIT: It's a shot from the "WonderGlobe" project. Essentially Google Earth on steroids. So no, it's not a photo. The "atmosphere" layer you see is just something to hide the artifacts that come with rendering spheres. It's a common technique in games too.

Nevertheless, I can see my house from here.

Xaero_Vincent
Sexy me

Bas wrote:

It always strikes me as odd how unnaturally blue the waters in the caribbean look. It's this really intense azure, and it's completely out of place with the rest of the world. Weird.

I've always wondered this too.

Is it turquoise color because there is submerged land near the surface?

Or is it because the ocean is warmer there, or the salinity in the seawater near those regions is higher or lower?

CannotResolveSymbol
Microsoft: Who do you want to execute today?

Xaero_Vincent wrote:

Bas wrote:
It always strikes me as odd how unnaturally blue the waters in the caribbean look. It's this really intense azure, and it's completely out of place with the rest of the world. Weird.

I've always wondered this too.

Is it turquoise color because there is submerged land near the surface?

Or is it because the ocean is warmer there, or the salinity in the seawater near those regions is higher or lower?

According to NASA's oceanography group, sunlight is reflecting off the sand and reefs near the surface, see the caption under the image on this page.

a !
http://search-engines-web.com/

A Couple of Hundred Comments from Digg -where this photo just made the homepage in a big way. Lucky NASA Website can handle large amounts of traffic. Imagine a 2 MB image being downloaded by tens of thousands one day

http://digg.com/space/Entire_Planet_Earth_Viewed_from_Space_Hi_Res_HDR_NASA_Photo

raymond

The Greening of North America as well as South America in the photo was amazing, must be all those plants sucking in all that excess CO2 food. The fat plant crisis--are humans abusing plants--news at 10. Wink

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

raymond wrote:
The Greening of North America as well as South America in the photo was amazing, must be all those plants sucking in all that excess CO2 food. The fat plant crisis--are humans abusing plants--news at 10.

Isn't it terribly tiring to have to live like you do? I mean, constantly having to make snide remarks about everything you come across while gathering links to articles?

raymond

Bas wrote:

raymond wrote: The Greening of North America as well as South America in the photo was amazing, must be all those plants sucking in all that excess CO2 food. The fat plant crisis--are humans abusing plants--news at 10.

Isn't it terribly tiring to have to live like you do? I mean, constantly having to make snide remarks about everything you come across while gathering links to articles?

Think of it as balance.

Cool

ScanIAm
On a scale of 1 to 10, people are stupid.

raymond wrote:

Bas wrote:

raymond wrote: The Greening of North America as well as South America in the photo was amazing, must be all those plants sucking in all that excess CO2 food. The fat plant crisis--are humans abusing plants--news at 10.

Isn't it terribly tiring to have to live like you do? I mean, constantly having to make snide remarks about everything you come across while gathering links to articles?

Think of it as balance.

Are you feeling unbalanced at the moment?

I don't recall any part of this thread teetering at any point.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:

According to NASA's oceanography group, sunlight is reflecting off the sand and reefs near the surface, see the caption under the image on this page.

That's amazing, thanks!

I still find it puzzling why this only seems to happen in the caribbean, though. Doesn't the mediterranean or the pacific have large reefs and areas of sand close enough to the surface for the sunlight to bounce off of? Why not?

Entire Planet Earth &amp; Atmosphere As Seen From Space