Thursday, January 18, 2007

Day & Night at the same time in the same place

THIS PHOTO IS ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. BE SURE TO
READ THE TEXT BELOW TO HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING
OF WHAT YOU ARE VIEWING. IT IS HISTORIC TOO AS THIS
IS THE LAST MISSION FOR COLUMBIA .

























The photograph attached was taken by the crew on board the Columbia
during its last mission, on a cloudless day.
The picture is of Europe and Africa when the sun is setting.
Half of the picture is in night. The bright dots you see are the cities' lights.

The top part of Africa is the Sahara Desert .

Note that the lights are already on in Holland , Paris , and Barcelona,
and that's it's still daylight in Dublin , London , Lisbon , and Madrid .

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 during
day time and night time.

To the left, on top, is Greenland , totally frozen.

8 comments:

  1. Wow! This is the first time I've seen such a picture, so beautiful.

    Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ok, this isn't a real photograph. It's a composite of several hundred photos (I believe part of the NASA "Blue Marble" project). The ocean is not that clear, people. Also, try to consider how impossible it would be to expose both sides of this frame properly.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah, apparently by "cloudless day", they mean a day where there are ABSOLUTELY NO CLOUDS in the whole of the UK and Africa. Please, tell me when the next one comes around.

    ReplyDelete