12/7/2002: Earth as art

ndetroit sent this along, thanks!

From This CNN story, the Library of Congress has an exhibit going on, in which out of 400,000 satellite images of the Earth, they selected 41 of them just for their artistic quality or beauty.

At the bottom of the story are two links. One to NASA, one to the USGS. At the NASA site you can browse the earth and find gigantic TIFF images to download; at the USGS site you can find much more useful sizes, many ready to be wallpaper, and you can also order them as poster-sized prints. (For only $30. Interesting holiday idea? Maybe get it framed? Hmmm.)

So, shown above are salt flats in the largest desert in Iran.

I've always been a fan of <a href="http://www.quantumphilosophy.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=634&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0">Slartibartfast's work</a>. It's good to see he's getting a wider audience.

Have you seen my Fjords?? ... I won an award for them ...

There are a lot of really cool pictures in there, and the descriptions are interesting. I wish I knew how to interpret picture of "The Optimist" however. I see the red dot, but what is with the striations and the color scheme?

btw; I tried to zoom in on the fjords and find Slartibartfast's name, but I couldn't find it. I think the resolution on these pictures just sucks.

Edit: I dislike the USGS site because it usually doesn't provide information and it doesn't have larger sizes (in an easy to access way). I dislike the NASA site for having only really small thumbnails and big pictures, I like the sizes on USGS for browsing. It's very hard to use them in synchrony, because they are organized differently. Urg!

Originally posted by Uryoces
Have you seen my Fjords?? ... I won an award for them ...

Slartibartfast! Where have you been? How's the weather on Magrathea?

Here's another perspective on our cozy little planet.

That was awesome Griff! Amazing!

wow, griff, that is awesome. It gives a good feel for the same thing that is <a href="http://www.amnh.org/rose/index.html">demonstrated in this building</a>...and at much less the price. Very cool.

I'll put it on my site, as soon as the bastard comes back up. :mad: