On a clear day.... Nasa reveals mesmerising 'blue marble' images of Earth

dailymail.co.uk ^ | March 2, 2010 | Daily Mail Reporter

[Free ThinkerNY]

These spectacular 'blue marble' images are the most detailed views of Earth to date.

Using a collection of satellite images, scientists painstakingly stitched together months of observations to create these montages which show the surface of the continents and oceans in stunning detail.

Much of the imagery came from a space camera onboard the Nasa satellite Terra, which is orbiting 435miles above the Earth's surface.

A spokesman from the Nasa Goddard Space Flight Centre, which released the pictures, said: 'These are spectacular "blue marble" images, which show the beauty of our small planet.'

The two pictures show opposite sides of Earth. One reveals the entire North American continent, Central America, the northern half of South America, Greenland and the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, in one perfect shot.

The other highlights most of Europe, Africa and Asia. However, both northern Europe and Australia are just out of the picture.

Our planet's surface covers 197 million square miles with 57 million square miles of land and the rest as water.

[FrdmLvr]

Beautiful.

[HighWheeler]

Looks like it’s suffering from runaway global warming.

[KevinDavis]

For other space news go to: http://www.spacetoday.net
For a list of Private Space Companies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_companies

[Chode]

question... why does it show almost all of the earths surface brown??? no green at all

[driftdiver]

Check out the inane comments at the end of the article. Wow some really brilliant people being raised over there in the UK.

[EnglishOnly]

The Fool has said in his heart...”There is no God.”
Psalm 14:1

[Hoosier-Daddy]

“How does it look son?”

“Well, Mr. President, it looks like a giant blueberry.”

[skr]

Lots of desert in the southwest?

[Hoosier-Daddy]

South America is almost entirely green.

[Williams]

actually there is a lot of green if you think about it, all the green areas are an awful lot of individual trees seen from very far away.

[GeronL]

These images are heavily augmented. I have the same question.

[ThomasSawyer]

"Looks like it’s suffering from runaway global warming."

Someone at NASA forgot to "Photoshop"-out the ice at the North Pole.

[SunkenCiv]

Okay, so, I want to visit space.

[LiberConservative]

Thanks for my new desktop background image.

[Free ThinkerNY]

Desktop background image is a good idea.

[browardchad]

Gorgeous — they look like paintings. Thanks for posting.

[TheVitaminPress]

From The Vitamin Press

It wasn't me!