Earth from Columbia
Here is a picture taken from the space shuttle Columbia, on its last mission. Our display format doesn’t come close to doing it justice, so please click on it to see the image in full size.
The picture is of the Atlantic Ocean, Europe and Africa when the sun is setting for locations in the middle of the frame. It is still daylight to the left of the terminator, and night has fallen to the east. The smudges of bright dots that you see are the lights of cities. Note that the lights are already on in Holland, Paris, and Barcelona, and that it’s still daylight in Dublin, London, Lisbon, and Madrid.
The top part of Africa is the Sahara Desert.
The sun is still shining on the Strait of Gibraltar. The Mediterranean Sea is already in darkness.
In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean you can see the Azores Islands; below them to the right are the Madeira Islands; a bit below are the Canary Islands; and further South, close to the farthest western point of Africa , are the Cape Verde Islands.
Note that the Sahara is huge and can be seen clearly both in daylight and at night. The effect may have been highlighted by moonlight, which would explain the recongnizable shape of Italy and Sicily.
To the left, on top, is Greenland, totally frozen. Between England and Greenland, Iceland appears as a large island.
Those are the observations that were included with the image when we received it. There’s a lot more in the image and you are welcome to point out additional features– we see something new every time we look at it..
In other space-related news, the International Space Station is clearly visible to the naked eye, if you know when and where to look. Nasa has a database of visibility data for major cities around the world. Look for visibility periods of 4 minutes or more, with a reasonable maximum elevation (say 30 degrees or more).
If you have an appetite for space photography, go to Google Maps. Drag an area of interest to the middle of the map and play with the zoom function, and then switch from map view to satellite view. With a little patience you should be able to find your own house.
Also a great deal of fun, Google has a map of the lunar surface showing the locations of the Apollo landings. Be sure to zoom in all the way on this one.
–SG
What do you think? Please enter a comment below.
September 6th, 2005 at 5:52 am
That is a wonderful photo. Thank you for distributing it. I have it on the wall above my desk. It was sent to me two weeks ago by Tom, an Army buddy from WWII.