Tag Archives: Earth

Astronaut captures beautiful images of Earth, folds them into stunning time-lapse video

Fascinated by the vastness and wonderment of space that was presented in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey? Then you have to check out this six-minute time-lapse video. Our beautiful planet Earth stars in the clip that’s actually made up of 12, 500 photographs taken by European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst during his six-month stint in space aboard the International Space Station. While carrying out scientific experiences way up in the sky, Alexander smartly set cameras to automatically snap pictures at regular intervals. The result is what you see here: a spectacularly seamless and breathtaking look at our pale blue dot*.

*Blue Dot was the name of Alexander’s mission to space. And of course the ESA is borrowing that name from the late, great astronomer Carl Sagan; he was the creator and host of the original Cosmos series and he famously described Earth as “a pale blue dot.”

The Pale Blue Dot, narrated by Carl Sagan

This is an expert from the book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.  In it astronomer Carl Sagan talks about the the famous picture of the Earth, our “pale blue dot” taken by Voyager I on February 14, 1990.  The short film adds a layer of classic movie scenes to the narration; it was put together by David Fu.  Really puts things into perspective.  We are but a speck in the vastness that is the universe.

[Via Gizmodo]

Planet Earth like you’ve never seen it before

This spectacular “blue marble” image is the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer (.386 square mile) of our plane.

Check out the gallery below to see an additional shot with the US of A front and center.  Head over to NASA to download the larger, high resolution versions of these images.  They make for a great desktop background.

[Via NASA; Gizmodo]

Satellite imagery portraits Planet Earth

Weddesigner Depot has posted 60 images of Earth taken by Landsat7 satillites in space.  “Various combinations of the eight Landsat 7 spectral bands were selected to create [these] vivid RGB composites.”  These images are beautiful and really put into perspective how expansive and breathtaking our planet truly is.  Enjoy some more satellite compositions in the gallery below, and head over to Webdesigner Depot to see the rest.

[Via GizmodoWebdesigner Depot]