Natural Environment Blog

The Nature Conservancy have announced the finalists of their 4th Annual Digital Photo Contest. In an email to members, the Nature Conservancy said:

Thank you to everyone who submitted an image for consideration. Your love of nature has inspired us and continues to remind us of the magnificent lands, waters and wondrous species we work to protect and preserve, every day.

The support of members like you has allowed us to protect and restore over 119 million acres of land and 5,000 miles of river and is the reason that we are the leading conservation organization working around the world today.

There are 15 finalists in total, and it’s now up to you to vote for your favorite. Voting is open until Monday, February 8, 2010 at 10am EST. The Grand Prize Winner will be announced on February 15, 2009.

The winning photo will be featured on The Nature Conservancy’s website, which is visited by more than 3 million people annually.

So, place your vote now.

You can also check out all submitted photos at the Nature Conservancy’s Flickr page.

I recently wrote about the Crew Earth Observations experiment, where crew of the International Space Station photograph the Earth.

Although photographing Earth only takes up a small portion of their time - between 10 to 15 minutes per day - these photos are a crucial part of analyzing our ever changing planet.

So, every day there are astronauts up there in the sky taking photos of us here on Earth. But before you get all paranoid, did you know that the International Space Station can actually be seen from Earth?

The International Space Station can be seen from Earth with the naked eye. It orbits the Earth at an average speed of 27,700 km (17,210 statute miles) per hour, completing 15.77 orbits per day. And, because it orbits at approximately 350 kilometers above the Earth, it is close enough to see as it zooms past your region.

To find out when the International Space Station is next traveling past your town, check out the Heavens Above website.

NASA astronauts have shared their top ten photographs of Earth as taken from space.

The photos have been taken as part of the Crew Earth Observations (CEO) experiment. The CEO experiment is an ongoing mission to provide people on Earth with data about our ever changing planet.

Astronauts have been taking photos of Earth since the early 1960s. Nowadays, the CEO experiment continues on the International Space Station (ISS), which hovers around 220 miles (354 kilometers) above Earth.

The photos to the right are included in the top ten Earth observations. The top photo was taken when Mt Cleveland erupted for about two hours in 2006.

The second photo shows what the Himalayas look like from the International Space Station. This photo includes Mount Everest (the world’s highest mountain) and Mount Makalu (world’s fifth highest mountain).

The astronauts on the International Space Station spend between 10 and 20 minutes per day taking photos of Earth. They use hand held cameras, which include 35 and 70 mm cameras.

Areas to be photographed are both pre-determined, and decided by the crew. The pre-determined areas are generally regions of Earth that have undergone change or are indicators of global change.

Many of the pre-determined sites include major deltas in south and east Asia; coral reefs; smog-prone urban regions; areas experiencing major floods or droughts triggered by El Niño cycles; high altitude glaciers, which reflect longer-term climate changes; faults associated with major tectonic plate boundaries; and unusual features on Earth, like impact craters comparable to structures on other planet.

As mentioned in my article about NASA’s Earth Observing System, NASA doesn’t only study space. NASA spends a great deal of time and money studying Earth - from outer space.

Because of its Earth Observing System (EOS), NASA is able to provide us with detailed imagery of earth, taken from space craft and satellites in outer space.

But not only do we get photos of Earth, we also get to see things like:

• tropical cyclones, typhoons, hurricanes, and other weather systems
• city lights
• fires
• the effects of deforestation
• glacier recession - an (arguable) example of the effects of global warming

NASA makes these images available at its Visible Earth website, where you can download photos for print and web. NASA makes these images freely available to anyone, as long as they adhere to the terms of use.

Blue Marble - The Photo

Blue Marble is the name given to the most famous photograph taken of planet Earth.

The photo was taken on 7 December, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft. The photo was taken from a distance of about 45,000 kilometers from Earth.

Here’s Blue Marble - the photo:

Blue Marble - The Photo Series

Blue Marble is also the name that NASA has given to a series of Earth photos. As technology has advanced, NASA has been able to take more detailed imagery of Earth from space. In 2002, NASA produced the (then) most detailed, true-color image of Earth ever. It was able to do this by stitching together imagery from the Terra satellite.

Then in 2005, NASA was able to produce an image with twice the detail. This version is called Blue Marble: Next Generation and uses imagery taken from the Terra and Aqua satellites. To obtain the data, these satellites use a NASA sensor called the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS).

Blue Marble - Free to Download!

All Blue Marble images are available free of charge to educators, scientists, museums, businesses, and the public.

The collection includes images that are sized for different media, including Web and print. Users can download images of the entire globe, or just selected regions of interest.

You can download Blue Marble from NASA’s Visible Earth website.