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The newest weather satellite orbited to keep track of the planet's weather - GOES 15 - has sent back its first picture.
The black and white photo, taken Tuesday afternoon, shows the Western Hemisphere in sunshine and cloud, including a huge, swirling storm system off the Antarctic coast.
We don't often get to see fresh pictures of the entire planet. It takes a satellite in geosynchronous orbit - 22,230 miles up - to get it all in one frame.
And there it is, that fragile sphere where everything we've ever touched, everyone we know, and all our history reside, and whose delicate life-support systems are all that protect us from oblivion.
Here's a link to the high-resolution version.
Comments
Frank,
This is a really cool picture! Correct me if I'm mistaken, but aren't the photos we see in stock "view from space" pictures all just a rotation of 5-10 pictures all taken decades ago? I seem to remember reading that somewhere... maybe here?
FR: There is a tremendous amount of re-use of the iconic color images of the planet taken by the Apollo lunar astronauts from 1969 to 1974, including the famous "Blue Marble" image taken from Apollo 17 and hanging in countless classrooms across the country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Marble . There are also some very appealing color images, assembled more recently as photo-mosaics from many individual shots so that most or all of the surface is under clear skies. http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=2429
Posted by: Drew | April 8, 2010 9:10 AM
Sunny over Bawlmer on Tues - confirmed and documented. Thanks for the cool pic!
Posted by: Ken G | April 8, 2010 10:30 AM
GOES-15 also has other instruments,including a Solar X-ray Imager (SXI)! There is also a SXI on GOES-12 and maybe other GOES.
FR: Glad to hear it. One can never have too many solar X-ray imagers!
Posted by: Rich Stein | April 8, 2010 10:49 AM
It's a clever fake. No one ever even landed on the moon. I read all about it in the Weekly World News a few years back. And satellites? A myth perpetuated by pulp science-fiction stories. Also, the earth is clearly flat. Otherwise it would rain upside down in Australia or something. Sorry, I can't buy into this "globe" business. Hrumph! Pernicious nonsense!
Posted by: Todd | April 8, 2010 1:33 PM
A friend is in charge of handling he data for the GOES series. She said there were three lines that didn't make it, and apparently they generated them in. There was a lot of brass in the control room when this image rolled in. And the download is rather slow compared to what most people think.
Posted by: Mr. Plow | April 11, 2010 7:29 PM