Tag Archives: photography

China Is So Smoggy You Can’t Even See Beijing From Space

by turystycznypbs700 Posted on December 10, 2013

Can you find Beijing in this photo? Or anything, really? Photo: NASA Earth Observatory / Jeff Schmaltz / LANCE MODIS Rapid Response

China’s smog problems have been all over the news, with the air pollution to blame for bringing massive cities to a snarl, forcing the shutdown of factories and transportation, and wreaking havoc on people’s health. But a new photo captured by NASA’s Terra satellite really puts China’s smog problems into perspective: the smog over Beijing is so thick that it obscures the view of the city from space.

On December 7th, says NASA’s Earth Observatory, the day this photo was captured, “ground-based sensors at U.S. embassies in Beijing and Shanghai reported PM2.5 measurements as high as 480 and 355 micrograms per cubic meter of air respectively. The World Health Organization considers PM2.5 levels to be safe when they are below 25.”

PM2.5 refers to particles of air pollution that have a diameter below 2.5 micrometers.

“Fine, airborne particulate matter (PM) smaller than 2.5 microns (about one thirtieth the width of a human hair) is considered dangerous because it is small enough to enter the passages of the human lungs. Most PM2.5 aerosol particles come from the burning of fossil fuels and of biomass (wood fires and agricultural burning).”

For reference, here’s what the region is supposed to look like from space, a snap captured by Terra in January of last year. Beijing is the city in the top left, nestled among the mountains. The port city in the bottom right is Tianjin.

A smog-free look at the region, taken January 3, 2013. Photo: NASA Earth Observatory / Jeff Schmaltz / LANCE MODIS Response Team

More from Smithsonian.com:

Most of China’s Infamous Black Carbon Smog Comes From Cars And Cook Fires
Air Pollution Closed Schools in China

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China Is So Smoggy You Can’t Even See Beijing From Space

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NASA Goes All the Way to Saturn, Takes a Stunning Selfie

by Ameliankak Posted on July 23, 2013

That little blue dot floating in the black is every single one of us. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Last week we told you to smile wide, because a camera far, far, far away was about to take your portrait. From orbit around the gas giant Saturn, some 898 million miles from Earth, the Cassini space probe turned and took this photo. We’re that tiny blue dot, drifting in the black between Saturn’s rings and the blue smear at the bottom. (This smear, says Carolyn Porco, the head of the imaging team for Cassini, is Saturn’s E ring, a band produced by the geysers of Saturn’s moon Enceladus.)

This photo is just a sneak preview of what’s to come, says NASA. The full Saturn-Earth photo was taken as 33 individual frames, and this is just one of them. But, it’s the one that has Earth.

The snap is only humanity’s third such photo from the outer solar system. Unlike most tourists, NASA doesn’t travel to distant places just to spend the whole time taking photos of itself. One of the earlier snaps was also taken by Cassini, back in 2006. The one before that was by Voyager 1 way back in 1990—the famous Pale Blue Dot.

More from Smithsonian.com:

Smile! A Satellite Around Saturn Is About To Take Your Picture

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NASA Goes All the Way to Saturn, Takes a Stunning Selfie

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Smile! A Satellite Around Saturn Is About To Take Your Picture

by eltonwagner4653 Posted on July 18, 2013

This is what astronomers think the photo should look like. Photo: NASA / JPL-Caltech

On Friday afternoon at around 5:30 on the east coast, 2:30 on the west, look up to the sky and smile. Nine hundred million miles away, a camera is taking your photo. Our Earth and everything on it is playing the backdrop to a portrait of Saturn taken by a camera aboard NASA’s Cassini orbiter. That satellite has been cruising around Saturn since 2004.

The photo will see Saturn obscure the Sun, giving a good view of the gas giant’s rings. Blocking out the Sun also means that the relatively faint light of the Earth will be able to shine through. NASA:

“While Earth will be only about a pixel in size from Cassini’s vantage point 898 million [1.44 billion kilometers] away, the team is looking forward to giving the world a chance to see what their home looks like from Saturn,” said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “We hope you’ll join us in waving at Saturn from Earth, so we can commemorate this special opportunity.”

Cassini will start obtaining the Earth part of the mosaic at 2:27 p.m. PDT (5:27 p.m. EDT or 21:27 UTC) and end about 15 minutes later, all while Saturn is eclipsing the sun from Cassini’s point of view. The spacecraft’s unique vantage point in Saturn’s shadow will provide a special scientific opportunity to look at the planet’s rings. At the time of the photo, North America and part of the Atlantic Ocean will be in sunlight.

More from Smithsonian.com:

Fantastic Photos of our Solar System
Saturn’s Mysterious Hexagon Is a Raging Hurricane

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Smile! A Satellite Around Saturn Is About To Take Your Picture

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Eclipses Look Even More Gorgeous From Outer Space

by ghd12australia Posted on March 12, 2013

High in orbit above the Earth, the Solar Dynamics Observatory watches the Sun year-round, providing stunning stellar views that go unbroken except during a few special times each year. Because the SDO stays relatively fixed over one part of the planet in a geosynchronous orbit, the satellite goes through two annual “eclipse seasons.” For a few weeks twice each year, part of SDO’s view each day will be blocked by the Earth. And, three times a year, the Moon will get in the way.

Though a bit of a pain for the scientists trying to study the Sun, these orbital quirks provide some beautiful unintended consequences: gorgeous photos of an eclipse from space. Yesterday, NASA released photos and video of that day’s double whammy, a single day that saw both a terrestrial and lunar eclipse.

Earth passes in front of the Sun, from the perspective of the SDO satellite. Photo: NASA/SDO

One beautiful feature to notice is the apparent fuzziness of the Earthly eclipse. According to NASA, this is because of Earth’s atmosphere. The Moon, for the same reason, appears as a sharp disk.

When Earth blocks the sun, the boundaries of Earth’s shadow appear fuzzy, since SDO can see some light from the sun coming through Earth’s atmosphere. The line of Earth appears almost straight, since Earth — from SDO’s point of view — is so large compared to the sun.

The eclipse caused by the moon looks far different. Since the moon has no atmosphere, its curved shape can be seen clearly, and the line of its shadow is crisp and clean.

The Moon’s silhouette, by contrast, is much crisper. Photo: NASA/SDO

More from Smithsonian.com:

A Solar Eclipse, As Seen From the Surface of Mars

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Eclipses Look Even More Gorgeous From Outer Space

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From Wyoming to Mexico, A Beautiful Time-Lapse Trip Down the Colorado River

by JohnsieaJensen Posted on March 5, 2013

Drawing rain runoff and snow melt from the slopes of the Rocky Mountains, the Colorado River is a dominant source of water for the American southwest, providing fresh water for drinking and farming and hydroelectric power to millions.

In 2011, Will Stauffer-Norris and Zak Podmore spent nearly four months kayaking and portaging and hiking the length of the Colorado River, from the Green River in Wyoming, which feeds into the Colorado, to the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. That 113 day journey was crushed into one beautiful three-and-a-half minute time lapse, showcasing the varied landscapes of the southwest, from the Grand Canyon to Lake Mead, the reservoir that feeds the Hoover Dam, to a narrow series of irrigation channels.

The pair used their journey to try to draw attention to the modern state of the Colorado River, which Smithsonian‘s Sarah Zielinski detailed in 2010:

The damming and diverting of the Colorado, the nation’s seventh-longest river, may be seen by some as a triumph of engineering and by others as a crime against nature, but there are ominous new twists. The river has been running especially low for the past decade, as drought has gripped the Southwest. It still tumbles through the Grand Canyon, much to the delight of rafters and other visitors. And boaters still roar across Nevada and Arizona’s Lake Mead, 110 miles long and formed by the Hoover Dam. But at the lake’s edge they can see lines in the rock walls, distinct as bathtub rings, showing the water level far lower than it once was—some 130 feet lower, as it happens, since 2000. Water resource officials say some of the reservoirs fed by the river will never be full again.

Indeed, in the video, you can see the powerful river’s flows dwindle as water is siphoned off for irrigation or power production as it makes its way downstream.

More from Smithsonian.com:

The Colorado River Runs Dry

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From Wyoming to Mexico, A Beautiful Time-Lapse Trip Down the Colorado River

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