A photo from open sources In recent years, the myth that from space visible Great Wall of China was finally debunked. Though the wall is long but not wide enough and too good harmonizes with the environment to be visible from space. Probably many were disappointed by this fact, but on earth there are many beautiful things that can be seen from space, especially being in low Earth orbit, where satellites and the International space station.
Open pits
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Quarries are essentially massive pits from which to mine gold, copper, uranium and other minerals. To obtain access to resources, you need to dig a hole in the ground, which expands and deepens until a person finds desired.
Therefore, such pits often expand to gigantic dimensions, that become visible from space like any lake or mountain.
For example, the Russian diamond mine closed today The Mir is so colossal in size that Russian officials I had to close this area for flights. Apparently, the pit, 523 meters deep and 1200 meters wide, created so strong a downward flow that triggered a fall from the sky helicopters.
And this is not even the largest mine in the world. This title is mine Bingham Canyon, also known as copper Kennecott Mine located outside Salt Lake City Utah.
The depth of the mine is 1.2 km, the width is 4.4 km. Until 2030 the mine will still expand. NASA astronauts did it amazing photo of the grand bingham canyon while passing above it, while on the ISS.
Seasons
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Those who have been in orbit for quite some time really can keep track of how the seasons change based on the changing topography of the planet. However, even we humans can see this fascinating transformation thanks to satellite NASA images.
When monthly images merge into an animation, they show the ebbs and flows of the polar ice, dry and wet seasons in the tropics, as well as the growth cycle of vegetation around the world.
Perhaps the most interesting to observe the formation Arctic ice, as well as how it retreats annually. Speaking of this process in numbers: Arctic sea ice in the most the coldest months of the year covers an area of 15 million square kilometers in summer halved.
For comparison: Antarctica is losing almost all of its ice (18 million square kilometers in winter to 3 million in summer).
Forest fires
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For those who live in dry and hot conditions, a constant threat fires is just a fact of life. Smoke and ashes from this disaster “regulates” the brightness of the sky for hundreds of kilometers, and during fires, so much smoke is produced that even astronauts can say that something is burning.
The image above shows a photograph taken by a satellite in October 2003, during a fire in California, which began a little above Santa Barbara and stretching all the way to the Mexican borders. Due to the strong winds of Santa Anna, this fire along with several others then burned over 240,000 hectares of land throughout the state and claimed a large number of human lives.
However, a fire of not such magnitude can be seen from of space. NASA experts have a whole collection at their disposal photos of smoke from fires, large and small.
One of the most interesting is a series of photographs showing hundreds of small fires over Africa that broke out in the same time. However, it is widely believed that this smoke had a different origin: several farmers burned their land in agricultural purposes.
Volcanic eruptions
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50-60 volcanic eruptions occur on Earth annually. Any of astronauts can see them in the form of rising ash and smoke from natural chimney. Sometimes even burning, luminous magma is visible far beyond the stratosphere.
Sarychev volcano (pictured above) is located in the northwest of the Pacific ocean and is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Since 1946 The volcano erupted 8 times. During his eruption in 2009 the shock wave was very strong, “blowing up clouds” and giving the opportunity for astronauts to get a surprisingly clear photo this phenomenon.
Other most active volcanoes are Mount Stromboli in Italy, Etna in Italy, Mount Yasur in Vanuatu. All of them constantly erupted for hundreds and even thousands of years.
How the earth is visible from space
The radiance of phytoplankton
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Phytoplankton are microscopic, plant-like organisms that multiply rapidly and create huge blooms algae on the surface of the ocean. They accumulate in so much large and large populations, which is sometimes the only way to make out their entirety is to take a look from space.
Their flowering can cover more than a hundred kilometers, and since they follow the ocean current, phytoplankton can take very beautiful blue-green forms.
Flowering begins when ocean waters mix, and phytoplankton receives the maximum amount of light and nutrient substances. It also serves as food for a variety of marine life, and is the foundation of the ocean’s food chain.
It is also a serious carbon dioxide scavenger, absorbing about a third of all CO2 that humanity produces as a result of burning fossil fuels. Flowering photo plankton made in 2010 off the coast of Ireland by satellite NASA
It is believed that the eruption of Eyyafyatlayokudl volcano in Iceland provided phytoplankton with iron and other nutrients substances that allowed him to grow to such impressive sizes.
The border between India and Pakistan
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There is no better place than space to see all the beauty of our planets and the interconnectedness of the human race. However, even rising hundreds of kilometers above the Earth, we can still see some not very pleasant side of life that we ourselves and create.
Take, for example, the man-made border between India and Pakistan. These two countries are in such a relationship with friend that they erected a physical militarized border that illuminated by spotlights at night to prevent ammunition trade and terrorist crossings.
The border lights are so bright that 2900 km the demarcation line is clearly visible from the ISS. Border goes through various terrain, including cities and deserts, but that surprisingly, burns in full length.
Over the past decades indo-pakistani the border was one of the most dangerous places in the world suffering from lawlessness, violence and deadly confrontations.
Deforestation
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Looking at the planet from above, you can easily get real visibility. what is happening to her. One such example is deforestation. If a person could be in space 30 or 40 years, then with his own eyes he could see what for many years have been documented by satellites: sequential and regular loss of forest.
The image above was taken using Landsat 1, a NASA satellite, and is “one of” in a long series of photos that reveals a striking change in the look of the Amazon rainforest in the period between 2000 and 2012.
In just 37 years, this territory, covered with lush and dense trees, lost 2500 square kilometers of forest. This is very clearly visible in the photo from space. Overall in history Amazon forests lost 360,000 square meters of their existence kilometers.
What is visible from space
Sandstorm
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There are three main components required to form sandstorm: wind, sand or dust and dryness. When these three components combine under ideal conditions, incredible flows begin to rise at a speed of up to 160 kilometers in hour, sweeping away everything and everyone in its path.
These storms are sometimes so massive that they can be observed with ISS. For example, the above picture shows a sandstorm, covering Egypt and stretching over almost the entire Red Sea.
Similar sandstorms occur regularly off the coast of Africa, China and other places where trade winds can carry dust for thousands kilometers. It is not uncommon for dust and sand to create sugar dirty and foggy sky over the entire Caribbean pool.
Sandstorms damage buildings, people and animals, however, they also benefit by delivering minerals and other nutrients substances in places of vegetation, such as, for example, Amazon forests.
Borders between rich and poor countries
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Modern civilizations have such an effect on the globe, that the borders between countries are noticeable even from a height of hundreds kilometers. NASA astronaut John Grunsfeld flew on a space shuttle five times in his entire career.
He said that rich countries tend to “glow” green, while poorer ones with access to drinking water is limited, “painted” in an unpleasant brown.
In addition, countries for which electricity is not commonplace, noticeably fade at night and contrast sharply with neighboring states whose vibrant cities illuminate the sky.
This difference is especially evident between the boundaries of the North and South Korea. At night, South Korea, like any modern country, burns while it is so dark in North Korea that the state is almost disappearing.
In the photo above you can see how South Korea “burns” in the lower right corner (the brightest spot is Seoul). China is equally bright throughout of its entire territory (the opposite part of the photo). But where is north Korea?
No, she did not drown in the ocean. In fact, the “black mass” between South Korea and China is the desired territory. Also pay attention to the tangerine demilitarized zone. Is visible only the capital is Pyongyang.
While North Korea is hard to blame for the light pollution, but this photo clearly illustrates how much countries, most likely, lives without electricity, as well as without everything, what is connected with it: heat in the winter, cooling, appropriate temperatures in hospitals, etc.
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