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EARTH IS US > A VIEW OF EARTH FROM SPACE (IMAGES: NASA)
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BIG BLUE EARTH, 1972
This classic photograph of the Earth was taken on December 7, 1972. The original caption is reprinted here: `View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. This translunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap. Note the heavy cloud cover in the Southern Hemisphere. Almost the entire coastline of Africa is clearly visible. The Arabian Peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of Africa. The large island off the coast of Africa is the Malagasy Republic. The Asian mainland is on the horizon toward the northeast.’
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EARTH, A TINY DOT
This image of the Earth is one of 60 frames taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on Feb. 14, 1990 from a distance of approximately 4 billion miles and is a mere point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Earth was caught in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun.
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ARAL SEA DECLINE
A massive irrigation project in the Kyzylkum Desert of central Asia has devastated the Aral Sea, located in both Uzbekistan and Kazakstan over the past 50 years. This image, taken August 16, 2009 shows the decline of the Southern Aral Sea in the past decade, as well as the first steps of recovery in the Northern Aral Sea in recent years.
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BETSIBOKA RIVER, MADAGASCAR (March 2010)
In northwestern Madagascar, the Betsiboka River flows toward the coast, emptying into the Bombetoka Bay. In late March 2010, not long after Tropical Cyclone Hubert passed through the region, part of the river pushed over its banks, flooding nearby agricultural fields.
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SIR BANI YAS ISLAND, UAE (January 2010)
Sir Bani Yas Island is located in the Persian Gulf near the western coastline of the United Arab Emirates. Roughly 14 kilometers (9.7 miles) by 9 kilometers (6 miles), the island is the surface expression of a salt dome which is a pocket of salt minerals that balloons upward into overlying layers of sedimentary rocks. This astronaut photograph illustrates the varying character of surfaces on Sir Bani Yas. Sir Bani Yas Island was the personal retreat of the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan who was president of the UAE from 1971-2004. He established a nature preserve on the island for animals native to the Arabian Peninsula that is now open to the public.
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DEVELOPMENT OF DUBAI, UAE (February 2010)
Part of the UAE, Dubai entered a period of dramatic urbanization at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Lacking oil, Dubai built its growth on finance, real estate, and tourism. With no surface water, few aquifers, and little rainfall, the city used desalinization plants to convert ocean water to freshwater, ornamenting the city with golf courses, gardens, and palm trees. Gigantic palm trees also sprouted along the coast—artificial islands made from sea-floor sand protected by rock breakwaters. NASA’s Terra satellite captured this false-color image of part of Dubai, including the resort island of Palm Jumeirah, on February 8, 2010.
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KARACHI, PAKISTAN (January 2010)
A centuries-old settlement that now ranks among the world’s largest; Pakistan’s seaport city of Karachi mixes intense urbanization with remnants of a natural environment. This image shows the southwestern edges of the city, where mangroves and river deltas mix with ports and pavement. Two rivers, the Lyari and Malir, pass through Karachi en route to the Arabian Sea. According to census statistics from 2000 to 2005, Karachi had a population of over 12 million inhabitants in 2006, and it was expected to maintain a high growth rate over the next decade.
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WINTER FIRES IN BURMA, THAILAND, LAOS, VIETNAM (February 2010)
The climate of Southeast Asia is dominated by the Asian monsoon. From late spring through summer, it is rainy and hot; from fall through winter, it is cooler and dry. In the late dry season, fires—both intentional and accidental—become widespread as people turn to fire to clear and manage agricultural and residential landscapes. In the first months of the year, it is not uncommon for satellites to capture sights such as the one shown in this image: hundreds of active fires burning across the hills and valleys of Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam.
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KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (July 2009)
For more than 3,000 years, Kabul has occupied a strategic location along Central and Southern Asian trade routes. In the late eighteenth century, Kabul was established as Afghanistan’s capital, and industrialization and urbanization increased rapidly starting in the twentieth century. Vegetation appears fluorescent green, urban areas range in color from gray to black, and bare ground varies in color from beige to reddish brown. A mountain range, including Kohi Asamayi and Kohi Bini Hisar runs roughly northwest-southeast.
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BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS (January 2010)
Bridgetown is the capital city of the island nation Barbados, located to the east of the Lesser Antilles Islands. Barbados is located in the western Atlantic Ocean rather than the Caribbean Sea and is a member of the British Commonwealth. The metropolitan area is recognizable in this astronaut photograph due to the gray and white rooftops and street grids (image center) that contrast with green vegetated fields and riverside areas of the island’s interior to the northeast (image top center).
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PASO DE LOS TOROS, RIO NEGRO, URUGUAY (November 2009)
The city named Paso de Los Toros sits just north of the Rio Negro in central Uruguay. Flowing from east to west, the Rio Negro’s course takes it through oxbow curves on either side of the city, surrounding Paso de Los Toros on three sides. Normally, the river’s banks are smooth and well-defined. The torrential rains that struck South America in late November 2009, however, pushed the Rio Negro well above its banks and broadened the channels of the smaller water bodies flowing into the river. The southeastern quadrant of the city has been whittled away by floodwaters to form a fairly thin strip of land poking into the river.
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TEHRAN, IRAN (July 2009)
Tehran, Iran’s capital, ranks among the world’s fast-growing cities. In the early 1940s, Tehran’s population was about 700,000. By 1966, it had risen to 3 million. Today, the metropolitan area has more than 10 million residents, more than the sum of the country’s next five major metropolitan areas combined. This explosive growth has environmental and public health consequences, including air and water pollution and the loss of arable land. In this image, vegetation appears bright green, urban areas range in color from gray to black, and barren areas appear brown.
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ATHABASCA OIL SANDS, ALBERTA, CANADA (July 2009)
In the ranking of the world’s proven oil reserves, Canada stands behind only Saudi Arabia. Canada possesses an estimated 178.6 billion barrels of crude oil accessible using current technology. Of this reserve, 174 billion barrels are in Alberta’s oil sand fields, which cover 140,200 square kilometers (54,132 square miles) of the province. Oil sands consist of sand coated in water and a sticky film of bitumen, a heavy oil. Here, oil companies scoop the sand from the surface after stripping off overlying vegetation and top soil. The result is illustrated in this true-color image.
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TIBETAN GLACIER PLATEAU (September 2009)
On the Tibetan Plateau, temperatures are rising and glaciers are melting faster than climate scientists would expect based on global warming alone. A recent study of ice cores from five Tibetan glaciers by NASA and Chinese scientists confirmed the likely culprit: rapid increases in black soot concentrations since the 1990s, mostly from air pollution sources over Asia, especially the Indian subcontinent. Soot-darkened snow and glaciers absorb sunlight, which hastens melting, adds to the impact of global warming. The highest concentrations of black soot are in the right-hand side of the image, over the densely populated coastal plain of China. But high concentrations occur over India, as well, and the black soot spreads across the southern arc of the Tibetan Plateau, which is defined by the towering peaks of the Himalaya Mountains.
