Hello Kossacks!
Ever wonder what it might be like to view our fair planet from a geo- synchronous orbit? I know I have, but like just about everyone I'll never get a chance to go there in person (an admission that calls the cherub Melancholia to whisper in my ear). Ah, "but there are vays to make you zee, you know", to paraphrase an old cliche, methinks...
James Drake has imagined a way to bring us the world in a way we might never experience in person. He's strung together hundreds of publicly available pictures taken by the Russian weather satellite
Electro-L. The results are exceedingly spectacular.
A time-lapse of Planet Earth, created from images produced by the geostationary Electro-L Weather Satellite. The images were obtained beginning on May 14th, and end on May 20th. The images are the largest whole disk images of our planet, each image is 121 megapixels, and the resolution is 1 kilometer per pixel. They are taken every half hour, and have been interpolated (smoothed) to create this video. The images are taken in four different wavelengths of light, three visible, and one infrared. The infrared light is reflected by forests and vegetation, which appear orange in these images. Images Copyright NTs OMZ. Videos Copyright James Drake
YouTube
James also gives us a view of what it might be like to spend some time on the ISS (International Space Station).
A time-lapse taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night. This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica. Visible cities, countries and landmarks include (in order) Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Phoenix. Multiple cities in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, El Salvador, Lightning in the Pacific Ocean, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Lake Titicaca, and the Amazon. Also visible is the earths ionosphere (thin yellow line), a satellite (55sec) and the stars of our galaxy.
YouTube
From James' web site, he says of himself...
I'm an organism living on the surface of a beautiful little planet. I love to imagine the universe, and to share it with all other beings. If you want to see the inside of my neural networks, visit my website; Infinity-Imagined
But James Drake isn't the only one making beautiful images of our little home.
Rob Simmon, NASA's Earth Observatory art director describes the work he and NASA scientist Gene Feldman do to create their "Blue Marble" images and videos at
Ira Flatow's Science Fridays
Here is one of Gene and Rob's finished images...
I hope you enjoyed the view from space. Thanks for stopping by and...
Happy Earth Day!