Whole Earth images, Does any satellite provide regularly updated ones? Options

[peter59]

This image is from the Mariner-10 spacecraft.


Image FDS0014553 (November 1973)

[ugordan]

Here's a montage of Earth and Moon from MESSENGER. I used both the blue and violet filters for Earth because they're fairly narrowband and the violet filter better captures the Rayleigh scattering effect of the atmosphere than the longer wavelength blue. The Moon is a narrow-angle image taken a couple of days earlier and colorized using much lower resolution wide-angle data.
Earth is presented in a gamma-correct version so the contrast is different than in the official release. Earth's color balance is based on recent digital imagery from the Shuttle/ISS missions. I'm always striving to improve Earth's color in my images, this is currently my best guess and I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out.

[Stu]

Oh my....

"Beautiful" doesn't even begin to do that justice.

Can't help wondering what it will be like for the astronauts of the future, to see that view through their spaceship window as they come home after a mission to Mars, or Europa, or to another star...

Just magical.

[djellison]

I wonder if, with the Dawn flyby - we might get a similar view of Mars. We have a recent similar shot of Mercury, and Venus - it'd be great to wrap up a nice inner-solar system family portrait

[ugordan]

Now that you mention it, the Mercury image and this one do have almost completely the same phase angles.
Speaking of Mars, I wonder how much longer it's going to be before any Rosetta data hits the PSA (*cough*Mars flyby*cough*)...

[rogelio]

Nice picture, ugordan.

Are those smoke plumes from Amazonian forest fires? (I'm referring to the wispy features to the south of the river, not the obvious clouds to the north).

If so, it's quite sobering that they could be seen from 10,000's of km away...

[charborob]

Very nice image, except the Moon is not in its correct orientation. We can see features invisible from Earth, namely Mare Orientale and part of the farside

[ugordan]

Very nice image, except the Moon is not in its correct orientation. We can see features invisible from Earth, namely Mare Orientale and part of the farside

I said it's a montage, not an exact scene visible from the spacecraft. The Earth-Moon system did not look like this at any single time during the flyby, the phase angle difference makes that pretty obvious. Think of it as "artistic license" - putting the moon "closer" to the source of illumination because it's at a higher phase angle. As to putting the Moon to the left of the planet (at that time it was waaay up and to the left of Earth), I dunno, this looked more aesthetic to me. I didn't want to put the Moon in an inset box either for that reason.

Rogelio, I can't tell if those are forest fires or not. The official image advisory doesn't mention them, but I've found a site concerned with forest fires which claims the 2005 year was particularly bad in terms of fires in the Amazon (something about reduced rainfall that season). It does look like smoke, but then again, it could be low haze due to air humidity in the region. It's widespread all the way to the Andes so I'm inclined to say that's indeed smoke. I can't find any GOES-East satellite archive going back to August 2005 to better see what that was.

[tedstryk]

Amazing!

[Ant103]

Good god
I've found the desktop wallpaper of the day .

Thanks .

[centsworth_II]

Very nice image, except the Moon is not in its correct orientation. We can see features invisible from Earth...

But the image is not seen from the Earth's perspective.

[remcook]

amazing work as usual!

[Juramike]

Thank y'all for this thread!

Using these resources I was able to snag an image taken today (February 8, 2008) of three tropical cyclones simultaneously churning in the South Indian Ocean.



(Starting to look like Jupiter down there, isn't it?)

This site was used to access this image: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/goesfull.html

-Mike

[Stu]

Here's a montage of Earth and Moon from MESSENGER. .... I'm always striving to improve Earth's color in my images, this is currently my best guess and I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out.

Me too! Thanks for giving me permission to use it, Gordan!

"No Place Like Home..."

[ugordan]

You're welcome, Stu!