Two weeks ago I said that if I were an astronaut, I’d spend all my time with my nose pressed against the window. So it was with considerable enjoyment that I found this on NASA’s Flickr page: astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson, not quite with her nose pressed on the glass but close enough. She’s in the International Space Station’s cupola, surely the best view in the solar system, and she appears to be making the most of it.
Three weeks ago, the Wallpaper Monday was of NASA’s fabulously detailed “Blue Marble” image, showing North and South America as recorded by the newly launched Suomi NPP satellite. That image turned out to be so popular that NASA promptly released a follow-up, of the eastern hemisphere.
As with the first one, this image is the result of six separate satellite passes and a bunch of stitching together of the results. The whitish vertical lines are not artifacts of the stitching process, as some might guess, but rather sun reflections on the oceans as the satellite passed over. (Notice that they don’t appear on the land masses.) If you pull up the ginormous 11,500 x 11,500 version on Flickr, you can clearly see the reflections.
This image is also notable for capturing Tropical Storm Giovanna as it roars up on Madagascar. A day or so later it went directly over, covering the island nation from one end to the other.
And while I was nosing around NASA pics, I came across this one from 2007, centered on the Atlantic:
…which is gorgeous and has the added advantage of showing my adopted home.
Take your pick!
(Click on any image to planetize. Heck, click on ‘em all.)
Definitely the third one. I, too, can see my home!
And the colors are splendid, the contrast day/night stunning, you can clearly see the depth variations in the oceans and the ice cover on Greenland is so bright!(might come from the incidence of the sun rays, and the altitude of Greenland, too.)
And the angle of the view is remarkable, as is your nose.
Can’t you see Oregon on this one, also?
Well, SORT of…
After three weeks enjoying this gorgeous globe, I have just changed the perspective. My monitor still looks stunning.
that lucky, lucky astronaut…. I truly envy her. Although to be fair I would probably be vomiting through every orifice in my body. I’m very sensitive to motion sickness.
He he! I see I’m not the only poet here.
And you piqued my scientific curiosity about the ‘every’ thing…
I suppose this must be left to each one’s imagination.
Well… “every” is certainly an exaggeration. Let’s say 1 large orifice on my face. But I wasn’t exaggerating. A couple of summers back, I actually got queasy in a pool.