[Pokey78]

Just incredible.

[mikegi]

It's a fake. Go to this website to generate similar images.

[McGruff]

I just noticed that this is from Rush's Web site.
He's not going to be too happy if he finds out he was duped.

[river rat]

Yikes!
The world really is flat!

[RussellStevens]

Looks like a combination of these two photos: These were both made by combinging thousands of satellite pictures. I have both these photos in really high resolution (400MBs a peice) and could of easily made that photo.

[P-Marlowe]

Its got to be a fake. There is not a single cloud over all of England and Scotland. When is the last time in January that there was not a single cloud over all of the British Isles. Never.

Plus the shuttle would have had to be at least 5000 miles out to take a picture at that angle. And the lights could only be taken like that with time exposed photography, something that would have resulted in smearing on a vehicle traveling 17000 miles per hour.

Finally it appears to be dusk over Africa for at least 1500 miles. Dusk lasts about 1/2 hour and thus the maximum that clouds over Africa could be visible in the dark would be about 500 miles.

Other than that, its a pretty cool picture.

[illumini]

WOW, THE WORLD IS FLAT AFTER ALL....

[capitan_refugio]

Fake, but informative.

[LibWhacker]

Highly doctored, imo. It's a false color image for one. Forrests just don't show up as vibrant green swatches in true color pictures taken from space.

[metalboy]

Look! They even got a picture of France! Look at the detail of the cheese!

[BillCompton]

I got up this morning and read Andrew Sullivan. He linked to the "great photo" posted by Rush. I looked. My initial reaction was "cool". 5 seconds later my brow furrowed. 3 seconds later I was typing in www.FreeRepublic.com, 2 seconds later I typed in the search term "cool" 8 seconds later found someone that suggested it was fake. 20 later, I had read damning proof. Imagine what Isaac Newton would have done with the Internet.

[quietolong]

bump

[cogitator]

Here's a REAL photograph of the Panama Canal taken from the International Space Station. I've reduced the size of the actual photograph for display on FR; click the image to see the full-size version.

It should be obvious that the image which led off the thread isn't a photograph from the Space Shuttle; the altitude is way too high, and there are a host of other discrepancies. I'm only posting this picture to provide an example of what a real photograph taken from ISS/ Space Shuttle orbital altitude looks like.

[Alberta's Child]

Nice image, but it can't possibly be real. The "line" between daylight and darkness isn't nearly as clear as this. Otherwise, a sunset would last about a minute and a half before the area was plunged into total darkness. The transition from daylight to darkness is much more gradual than this, due to the "residual" sunlight that is refracted through the atmosphere.

There is almost no "transition zone" between daytime and night time on the moon, since there is no atmosphere there.

[Middle Man]

In a word, WOW.