New Delhi:
It is quite fascinating to learn how Earth, our home planet, looks stunning from space. Earth, being the third closest planet to the Sun, was formed billions of years ago. According to NASA, Earth looks like a blue marble with white swirls from space. Some parts are brown, yellow, green and white. The blue part is water. Water covers most of Earth. The white swirls are clouds. The brown, yellow and green parts are land and the exquisite white parts are snow and ice.
As we know ‘change is the only constant’, parts of Earth such as land, air, water and life are always changing. In a bid to learn about many man-made and natural changes on Earth, NASA studies the planet. Scientists study the planet to understand how Earth has changed in the past, is changing now and might change in the future.
For this, NASA uses satellites which look toward Earth from space. They take pictures of Earth and they collect facts about all of Earth's parts. All this eventually helps scientists predict weather and climate. One of the interesting things about Earth is that, it is the only planet known to have lots of water. Water is the most important element for life. Also, Earth is the only planet where life has been found.
Besides, people all across the globe will celebrate World Environment Day on 5 June. There will be ‘green’ rallies and pledges to protect the planet ‘Earth’. It is our duty to keep our environment green and protected. The spectacular pictures of Earth by NASA from space is a little reminder as to why the ‘World Environment Day’ is important and how we can take care of it.
While residents of islands and nations in the Western Pacific looked up in the early-morning hours to observe a total eclipse of the sun on March 9, 2016, NASA's Deep Space Climate Observatory looked down from space and captured the shadow of the Moon marching across Earth’s sunlit face.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF NASA'S DEEP SPACE CLIMATE OBSERVATORY
This picture was taken from the International Space Station wherein much of London and its suburbs are visible. Two of the characteristics that stand out at night are the progressively denser concentrations of lights and the change from yellower to whiter lights as you move toward the commercial center of the city. It was taken on September 2015.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF NASA'S EARTH OBSERVATORY
The waters along the West Coast of North America are some of the most biologically productive in the world. On Feb. 8, 2016, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on NASA's Suomi NPP satellite captured several images of blooming phytoplankton and swirling currents along the coast of California and western Mexico. The images were stitched together into a composite built with data from the red, green, and blue wavelength bands on VIIRS, along with chlorophyll data. A series of image-processing steps highlighted the color differences and subtle features in the water.
PHOTO: NASA IMAGE BY NORMAN KURING, NASA’S OCEAN COLOR WEB
This detailed image of Mount Fuji was taken Feb. 8, 2016, by an astronaut using the most powerful lens presently on board. Astronauts need to take advantage of oblique views and low sun angles to capture a strong sense of three dimensions in the photographs they take from the International Space Station. The low afternoon sun emphasizes the conical shape of Japan’s most famous volcano.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF NASA'S EARTH OBSERVATORY
The East African Rift is one of the great tectonic features of Africa, caused by fracturing of the Earth’s crust. This astronaut photograph of the Eastern Branch of the Rift (near Kenya’s southern border) taken on Jan. 14, 2012, highlights the classical geologic structures associated with a tectonic rift valley. On one side of the rift lies the Nubian (or African) tectonic plate, which includes the older continental crust of Africa. The Somalian plate — which is moving away in the other direction — lies to the other side and includes the Horn of Africa. (Note that the image is oriented so that north is to the lower left.) Together with the associated Ethiopian Rift, the tectonic boundary stretches from the southern Red Sea to central Mozambique.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF NASA'S EARTH OBSERVATORY
