Check out this picture taken by the crew of Columbia...

[friesianrider]

Check out this awesome picture, sent to me by a friend...

The photograph below 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 world's city 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 Daytime and night time. To the left, on top, is Greenland, totally frozen.

[Robeson]

1. Beautiful picture of Spaceship Earth, friesianrider....

...oh how I miss the Netherlands.

[MrScorpio]

6. You noticed that big, wonderful glob of light too?

I'm right there with ya

[ISUGRADIA]

2. NOT from Columbia...but still a nice picture in any case

from various images see:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/sunset.asp

Adding this from Snopes with EDIT:

The contradictory explanations of this photograph's origins given in the accompanying text are the first clue that something's amiss here -- this image can't have been both "taken by the crew on board the Columbia" and "taken via satellite."

Actually, the notation about this image's having been "taken by the crew on board the Columbia during its last mission" was added only after the fatal break-up of the Space Shuttle Columbia upon its re-entry on 1 February 2003. Well before then, this picture had been circulating as a photograph "taken via satellite, on a cloudless day."

[Tallison]

3. It's so tiny-looking

like a neighborhood. Love the patches of artificial light in the prenumbra. Wow. I could blow some time trying to identify the major metropolitan areas.

[ThoughtCriminal]

4. Another reason it could not be Columbia

Sunshine in the high latitudes suggests a summer pic (actually probably a composite to eliminate clouds). Columbia's last flight was in winter.

[benburch]

5. Nice urban legend.

But this is a picture from a rendered dataset.

[mike_c]

7. yep-- but it's still a wonderful image, and it gives me hope somehow....

All the pettiness of humankind seems insignificant from orbit.

[SoCalDem]

8. I posted this in July.. found at Nasa website

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/

here's the general website with a TON of gorgeous photos from space :)

and a clickable map for more pics

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/


earth from space pics

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/EFS/


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SoCalDem (1000+ posts) Tue Jul-19-05 04:31 PM
Original message
a sample.. sunrise??sunset??


?clickie