Every once in awhile something appears on the magical world wide web that inspires awe. One would think that in this age of information overload such epiphanies would be easy to come by. Yet I find that my routine of surfing the web for political, scientific, literary, and musical news oftens results in a dulling, rather than heightening, of wonder.
Case in point: the other day the great political blogger Andrew Sullivan had this in his blog, The Daily Dish, at TheAtlantic.com".
Now, I admit that was pretty cool! Slow motion photography revealed the beauty of shooting a pomegranate and having its seeds showering over a classic still life arrangement of fruit. The resultant "slowing down of time" gives the viewer a new frame of reference for observing the process, and the literal framing of the still life encourages the observer to view this event in an artistic context, rather than a destructive one. Ah yes. Within a minute, I was onto the next blog entry, the next link, the next wonder. That's the nature of the internet.
But this morning I came across something that truly gave me pause. (I know one is not suppose to begin a sentence with "but". But this is my blog.) Boston.com has a post on their blog called The Big Picture that exhibits 25 images of Earth taken from satellites.
The image that heads this entry was taken from that series. While each image is fascinating, and awe inspiring, there was something about the scale of this image (number 5 in the series if I remember correctly) that made my jaw drop. (Figuratively, if not literally. It was about 6:30AM sunday morning, and I did have a mouth full of coffee).
The image resembles frost on a pane of glass. But it's not. (There's that but again.) You're looking at an image of the snow covered Himalayan mountains in Tibet. In 9th grade science we discuss the importance of having a frame of reference when we discuss motion. This image, provides us with a frame of reference for our place on this planet.
Compare this image with the images of development in Las Vegas or Khartoum - or any of the other images on the page - and share your thoughts and impressions. (I suggest the image of Las Vegas, because when I was growing up Las Vegas was a very small city in the middle of an arid desert. It's changed a bit since then. And no, that was not a hundred years ago.)
16 comments:
All of those pictures are pretty amazing. The ones that I was most interested in were the ones that were taken of the Glaciers, the Dry Valleys, (and what exactly is a "false-color" image and what is the purpose of doing that?) and the ice shelf formations. I didn't know about how when two glaciers merge they form those parallel debris lines. Very cool. Also, the picture of the phytoplankton bloom was intriguing. Why does that happen? Is it natural for one that large to form? It’s something I’ve never seen before.
Photos like these make me understand why some people want to be astronauts. To look out your window and see something like the sunset reflected off the Amazon floodplain... It's just beautiful, and I'm glad we live in a time when anyone who's interested can see the view from space.
Besides the simple beauty of many of the photos, the thing that struck me most was how obvious it is which parts of the planet have been altered by humans: photos 3, 6, 18, and 22 in particular are full of straight lines and unnatural divisions of the land. These parts of the earth have lost much if not all of their natural beauty. It's disconcerting in a way, to see the effect we have on our planet in such plain images. But the areas that are clearly untouched by human hands- well, they can be breathtaking.
These pictures are really beautiful. What struck me most about all of them was that, sadly, it came as no surprise to me that the only photo of areas in the United States was of an over-developed, over-populated suburb in Las Vegas. These photos made me think not only about how truly amazing our planet really is, but also how we, as humans, are slowly destroying it. The one photo, aside from the suburbs, that stood out to me, as Mike said, was the one of the phytoplankton bloom. It is amazing that something so small could create something so beautiful. We live in an unbelievably beautiful place.
When I was looking at these photographs, I had the same reaction. My mouth just dropped open. It's these kinds of photographs that make us realize what a beautiful place we live in. Along with amazement, I also felt regret when looking at these photos, because everyday we are damaging this precious land we live on...I have to say that my favorite photo was the one with the irrigated fields.
I was amazed by these photos. This is like a view that many people including myself could never imagine, without seeing the real satallite views first. These images moved me. I even showed thema and discussed them with my brother. It's amazing how the whole world and the movement and change in one small partical or even temperature can effect the enviroment and larger populations of organisms. The photo of the glaciers on number 2 really made me think. To think that polar bears are drowning and seeing the images from a distance, it's reality which is hard for people to fully grasp. It's a sad reality. And I never knew why those gray lines were there. Could we discuss this?
Also I noticed that #9 and #12 are very similar in appearence. I wonder why? And the ice in #9 didn't fall into place the same way as number 12. Would there be a reason for that?
ps-I like these blogs.
All of the pictures were very interesting and thought provoking. the two that caught my eye though were 3 and 22 (the irrigated fields and Las Vegas). The irrigated fields looked like a quilt while Las Vegas seemed to resemble a mosaic. Even though both pictures are areas where humas have greatly changed the land, they are both still very beautiful and could be considered art.
Wow, some of those photos are real life optical illusions. The sand sea and Las Vegas pictures are my favorite even though each picture is special in its own way. I've seen many photos of earth, but not so many with such great detail. I liked how the photos show how diverse the earth really is. Living in Vermont for so long makes these photos seem a planet away, but they're not. Looking at these photos also provokes the question, How did these places end up looking like that? That really was quite cool.
Andy H
I thought that all of the photos were quite interesting, some obviously more than others. My favorites do not match up very well with the previous favorites. I had the most questions and thoughts provoked with numbers 4, 10 and 18.
#4 made me have a flash back to Science Fiction class and crop signs. It's just so strange to have such a perfect circle in the middle of the desert. It made me think of aliens.
#10 first of all is just a gorgeous picture. It's really neat to think about the way that plants and animals can find their ways. The island was completely cover in ice for many years, but now it has abundant vegetation. I just thought that it was cool.
#18, as many have said, is just an interesting way of looking at how humans shape their environment. The roads cut nearly perfectly through the middle of the pale green forests showing yet another example of how everything can live without profoundly changing the world around them except for man. Man always needs to, and will, leave a mark.
The anonymous that just went down was Holly. *oops* (and this is Holly again.....)
I also agree that these photos are pretty sweet, though some are a bit sad, yes. I found the one with all the irrigated fields kind of mind-boggling with all the square fields bending in weird ways...Or something like that. It looks as if it is made from pixels. I also really like the one with the Island in Canada, it looks very alien with all the bright colors mixing together in cool ways. I'm calling it the Awesome Canadian Island of Psychedelic Colorfulness. So there.
All of the photos were stunning.They remind you how beautiful the World is. One of my favorite photos had to be photo 17. I loved how vibrant the colors were. The ocean was extraordinarily blue. I thought the swirls throughout the Black Sea were very cool. I also liked photo 3 a lot. At first glance it looked like mosaic tiling or a quilt, then I looked at it again and I realized that each green tile was an individual farm. It reminded me of flying over farm lands in the flatter parts of the US and how there is square after square of farms. I always thought that was one of the most amazing things when i was little.
Katie B
I found a lot of these pictures very breathtaking. However, my two favorite were numbers 7 and 23. Number 7 with the two cyclones reminded me of two giant waves at there breaking point. The cyclones also reminded me of japanese wave paintings, like the one at this site: http://www.ukiyoereproductions.com/pictures/landscapes/lhokusai1.jpg. Number 23 with the sunset reflecting the amazon river was absolutely gorgeous. All these pictures seem to have endless opportunities to what they look like. To me this picture resembled lava flowing from a volcano. Again, like many people have said these pictures make us think about the world around us and how truly beautiful it can be.
Caitlin R.
Our planet can be a farley co-incidental place can't it? When I looked at number 4; the crater that is almost a perfect circle I marvaled. Or number 15 Of the river that branches and reaches the agriculture land, looking remarkbely like a tree. The sand sea was really cool. When I first saw it I had no idea what it was. So I read the heading; I didn't know that the sand could be so promient on the surface of sand seas. The cyclones were awesome in that awe-inspiring way not the "wow dude that was like so totally awesome" way. They were so massive. I couldn't help but wonder, "what would it be like to get caught in one?"
Da Cleava
I think these photographs are so amazing to look at, especially because you don't usually get to see the world from that perspective. It was easy to distinguish which areas were changed by humans. These photos are so disappointing to look at because the other photos of areas that are untouched are so beautiful. I love the ones with brilliant colors such as 10,17, and 23. I also really liked the photos that suggest movement such as 7,8,and 16.
Amanda O
Images taken from space always leave me pondering ideas that are, quite frankly, beyond my scope of comprehension. It took millions of years for this planet to take the shape that it has, and yet our species can destroy wilderness in the space of a few decades. I marvel at the fact that a creature so small and seemingly defenseless (no claws, no sharp teeth, no protective fur) can rule the planet. Evolutionarily speaking, we won the lottery. Generally, optimism is not my strong point when it comes to the state of the earthly environment, but I will say this: there are beautiful places left on this planet, and a species capable of destroying beauty must also be capable of preserving it. Who knows? Maybe our grandchildren will see these pictures and wonder why we were ever worried it would change.
Jennie M.
I, too, think that all of these pictures are truly amazing. Some of them caused me trouble understanding what they acutally resembled. The text written under each foto told me what it was, but to me, it often looked like the camera was really close to what it was taking a picture of and not hundreds of miles away, for example #5 and #12. As Mr. Engler said, #5 looks like "frost on a pane of glass", but in truth it is snow covered mountains in Tibet. #12 is the world's largets sand sea, but to me it looked like a modern painting with a weird pattern on it.
All thes pictures showed me how what a big variety of exciting areas the earth can offer and how boring our creations seem compared to those areas untouched by human beings (just look at the Las Vegas image).
Willi K-S
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