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Earth as Art

bravehamster writes "There's a new exhibit at the Library of Congress displaying images taken of earth by the Landsat satellites. The exhibit displays satellite photos that have an intrinsic aesthetic quality, showing the beauty of Earth as seen from really far away. There's an article about it on MSNBC here, and don't forget to check out those fjords!"

56 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Mmm.. fjords.. by Asmodean451 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Someone give Slartybartfast a prize...

    1. Re:Mmm.. fjords.. by richie2000 · · Score: 2, Offtopic
      First prize: A Slashdotting! (No, it isn't yet, I'm actually getting over 80KB/sec on the big fjord picture, but it will happen! Just you wait and see!)
      Second Prize: ???
      Third prize: Profit!!!

      Nope, that one is even more out of date. Hm, how about "All your fjords are belon*thump*

      ...

      I feel better now. Thanks.

      --
      Money for nothing, pix for free
    2. Re:Mmm.. fjords.. by /Wegge · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Slartibartfast designed the Norwegian fjords, not the Icelandic.

      --
      //Wegge
    3. Re:Mmm.. fjords.. by richie2000 · · Score: 2
      Try it now. :-) I got a "421 - There are already 50 people logged in. Try again in 10 minutes."

      http://slashdot.0wnz.your.ass.astroboy.nasa.gov/

      --
      Money for nothing, pix for free
  2. fjords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Those Icelandic fjords have nothing on Norway's award winning fjords.

  3. Pac Man! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    See if you can find the large 3/4 circle that is eating the smaller circle in the Garden City, KS plot. This is probably the only one that looks more interesting now than it would have before man changed it.

    1. Re:Pac Man! by grammar+nazi · · Score: 2
      The West Fjords are a series of peninsulas in northwestern Iceland. They represent less than one-eighth the country's land area, but their jagged perimeter accounts for more than half of Iceland's total coastline.

      I'm surprised that I am the only one to point this out:
      How can the fjords represent 1/2 of Iceland's coastline when they have a inifinite length (due to being fractal)?? Please advise.

      --

      Keeping /. free of grammatical errors for ~5 years.
    2. Re:Pac Man! by grammar+nazi · · Score: 3, Informative
      Do not confuse computional/mathematical representation/aproximation/generation with the real world.

      Whoa!! Your crazy way of thinking seems so new and revolutionary to me.

      Seriously, though, fjords can be approximated by fractals. To show this, all one needs to do is implement a fractal box counting algorithm to the image in question. Fractal box counting will show that the fjords have a boundary that is approximately 1.4 dimensions (rather than the typical 1-dimensional boundary of a circle or square) and thus, can not be measured with a finite 1-dimensional measure such as length. Thus the coastline length can be approximated by infinity. Everybody knows that anything remotely close to infinity is still infinity (e.g. \infty - 1,000,000,000 is still infinity), thus the coastline is infinitely long, at least in 1-D.

      This message is a queue for all of the Dynamical Systems Mathematicians to step in and correct me (although I think I am correct).

      --

      Keeping /. free of grammatical errors for ~5 years.
  4. Sissy. by jonny-mt · · Score: 5, Funny

    Earth art is lame. Give me some good old-fashioned rock porn any day!!

  5. 16 bit screen saver? by schatten · · Score: 2, Informative

    Neat pictures, but the screen saver is 16bit and doesn't run on the systems noted. I hope someone updates this.

  6. It looks so peaceful, by nich37ways · · Score: 2, Insightful
    And safe from those pictures. I guess that's why we're only "Mostly Harmless"
    If only people would look at these images and realise why everyone should chill out and relax.

    nich

    -- I was going to be a tree huggin hippy but my laptop kept running out of power

    --
    37 - what does it stand for really...
  7. `Where's the sense in that?' by MegaFur · · Score: 2, Funny

    I get the Slartybartfast reference. I guess what you're really trying to say is that, recognizing the Earth as art would make the Magratheans proud.

    On second thought, they probably wouldn't care since the program's already cocked up since we're from Golgafringam.

    Hey that explains Slashdot! (Re: useless 1/3, self included. :-P )

    --
    Furry cows moo and decompress.
  8. Download a printable poster TIFF file... by 0biJon · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's really nice that they are providing poster size prints for download...
    Most other places would give you a small thumbnail and ask you to pay for the full size version.
    These one's are pretty cool:
    http://astroboy.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthasart/images/gr eenland_hires.jpg
    http://astroboy.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthasart/images/ak patok_hires.jpg (I wonder what the red stuff in this one is?)
    http://astroboy.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthasart/images/ir aq_hires.jpg

    --
    ?Who controls the past now, controls the future.
    Who controls the present now controls the past.?
    1. Re:Download a printable poster TIFF file... by meringuoid · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh, well done. Find the biggest image files on the site and post the URLs on slashdot. What are you, a sadist? At least you didn't make 'em hyperlinks...

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    2. Re:Download a printable poster TIFF file... by Remus+Shepherd · · Score: 2

      http://astroboy.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthasart/images/ak patok_hires.jpg (I wonder what the red stuff in this one is?)

      I was involved in making these images. The red stuff in the Akpatok Island scene is clouds. I used an infrared band combination to bring out the highlights on the island, but as a side effect the clouds are not as bright in the bands used for green and blue.

      Oh, boy, we're getting slashdotted today. Gotta warn the sysadmins (assuming they don't already know).

      --
      Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
  9. Re:beowulf by richie2000 · · Score: 3, Funny

    *imagining* Wow, with that you could calculate the value of 42 in near-realtime.

    --
    Money for nothing, pix for free
  10. Earth from above by Mxyzptlk · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't forget the exhibition Earth from above by Yann Arthus-Bertrand! Yes, I admit it's in another league - the photos in EFA are taken from planes, but there are some really nice gems in there.

    1. Re:Earth from above by Iguanaphobic · · Score: 2

      I can't visit this site because I don't have IE on my Mandrake Lifebook. Poor me.

      --
      Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
  11. The Sat Pics by Tempelherr · · Score: 2, Insightful
    These pictures are stunningly beautiful, especially in the Scandinavian area. I noticed the news announcement on another site a few days ago and I fell in love with the picture of the Icelandic peninsulas. They're nice enough to provide rather detailed images, and I've been using that one as my wallpaper image ever since.

    I do hope they expand their collection a bit in the future though, as though the ones they have are amazing, I would really like to see some more, especially in the area of Europe, which seems to be somewhat lacking.

    1. Re:The Sat Pics by Remus+Shepherd · · Score: 2

      We tried to get pictures from every continent. The problem is that in general, natural places were more aesthetically pleasing than regions with a lot of man-made structures. Europe, sad to say, is wall-to-wall with man-made structures. But if we have another art show (which seems likely) I have candidate images from Skaggerak, Iberia, and the Carpathian mountains we may use.

      --
      Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
  12. Heavy duty recon... by pVoid · · Score: 2
    from the MSNBC article:

    Landsat-7 covers the entire surface of the earth every 16 days.

    Frick man, that's a LOT of surface to cover.

    Frankly, I'm too amazed by this to come up with a whity remark to make this post any more interesting...

  13. The next time a hurricane hits Florida... by Quaoar · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...don't panic. It's art!

    --
    I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
  14. IE4/Netscape 4 only by radon28 · · Score: 2, Informative

    You have reached this page because your web browser is not equipped to view the Earth from Above website.

    To enjoy the 'Earth from Above on the web' you will need to download the latest versions of:

    Netscape 4+ or Internet Explorer 4+

    (NOTE: Netscape 6 is not supported)


    IE 4??? Netscape 6 isn't supported?
    I would bet a few dollars that a current mozilla release (or opera, konqueror, galeon, pheonix, etc. etc.) just might be a little bit more functional than IE 4.

    1. Re:IE4/Netscape 4 only by rednaxel · · Score: 2, Informative

      My Netscape 7 did not worked either. According the source code, the page was made with Jedit 4.1.0 for Macintosh. But this may work:

      http://home.fujifilm.com/efa/pi/indexNN.html

      Anyway, the only real need for fancy and non-standard browser features is the "thumbnail browser". All the photos are in ordinary HTML files in format XXX_l.html (XXX is a zero-padded number):

      Storm over Amazonian rain forest - Brazil
      http://home.fujifilm.com/efa/photo/137_l.html

      Alex.
      --
      If you can read this, thank an english teacher.
  15. Colours? by bakes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Nice pictures, although the colours appear to be a bit artificial in some of them, in particular the green in the Brazilian shot. It would have been nice to see an un-enhanced photo for comparison.

    --
    Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
    1. Re:Colours? by gunga · · Score: 2, Informative

      The colours are artificial. Landsat doesn't take photographs.

    2. Re:Colours? by Remus+Shepherd · · Score: 3, Informative

      The colors are not 'artificial'. Landsat 7 takes data in 7 wavebands of light, only 3 of which are the red, blue, green we can see with human vision. In the Parana River scene, we used band 4 for green. That's our 'vegetation' band, and anything with chlorophyll shows up very bright in that band, thus looking very green in that image.

      So the colors are not artificial, they're just using frequencies of light that you normally can't see.

      --
      Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
  16. Aww com'on by quantaman · · Score: 5, Funny

    Like the Earth would just happen to be that nice looking from space. This just goes to prove that we didn't land on the moon because we didn't even make it into space because if we did we would have ordinary ugly pictures of the earth rather than these that were obviously done by an artist. Now excuse me but my tinfoil hat is starting to get smelly and it's tiem to change it. Now don't think I'm paranoid or anything but I don't think the government is spying on me with satellites I mean they didn't even make it into space! I need it to protect me from cancer due to the radiowaves randomly bouncing off clouds the government filled with metals and chemicals to control the weather and bounce off signals to simulate satellites (they can't launch anything into space of course). Well goodbye I hope the intelligent immortal mainframes at the FBI logging my keystrokes don't decide this is unamerican or anything and steal my heart to put into Dick Cheyney!

    --
    I stole this Sig
  17. Has this been proven? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I don't like to be a conspiracy theorist, but the moral community holds that the Earth is a fixed point in space, and much of the secular astronomical community holds that there is no "special" reference frame and that the Earth rotates the Sun. Personally, I would hate for the USGS and NASA to be attacking the Lord. I am not convinced that these pictures are real.

  18. My favorite is... by DrewCapu · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Lena Delta, Russia:
    http://astroboy.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthasart/ images/le na _hires.jpg

    As for the red stuff, I think I came across one photo with red that indicated vegetation of sort. But I doubt that colors always mean the same thing.

    The article makes note that some colors [are] "assigned arbitrarily to represent data -- such as levels of heat -- not visible to the human eye."

    1. Re:My favorite is... by mikerich · · Score: 2
      The red is usually associated with vegetation.

      Landsat and its relatives can use an infra-red channel which is particularly sensitive at detecting vegetation.

      This is then mapped to red in the final image. Or it can be processed as green - but the colour is usually a little 'off' of what you'd expect.

      Gorgeous images though, the Iceland picture is breathtaking.

      Best wishes,
      Mike.

  19. Earth from the Air by barnaclebarnes · · Score: 4, Informative
    Try this site....

    Earth From The Air

    It is the same photograhper but the exhibition is on in London. I highly recommend it. The photos are absolutly mind blowing. The prints are about 12ft x 6ft.

    --
    [Please type your sig here.]
  20. Look what you did. by jchawk · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well forget about a manned missioned to mars, NASA just spent the last of it's budget on bandwidth.

    Thank you slashdot! /Laugh it's funny

  21. beautiful by tanveer1979 · · Score: 2
    These are the most beautiful images i have ever seen. kinda makes me want to go to those places... esp the fjords. Seriously, the beauty nature has cant be paralled by any manmade thing. Many will differ.. but this is what I think.

    For those of you who enjoy nature..... and nature pics just go to google and then advanced image search and then wallpaper sized. Put in things like landscape... trees... starts.. hubble and you will see wonders.

    The first time I saw hubble telescope pics i was dumbstruck that things so beautiful could exist.... now I realize they exist on our own earth. yes my friends there is more to life than slashdot ;-)
    --
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  22. Other planets are art as well... but... by dagg · · Score: 2

    Earth's stark contrast of water, ice, cloud and land cannot be beat. The other planets are very beautiful, but nothing comes close to Earth.

    --
    Sex - Find It
    1. Re:Other planets are art as well... but... by meringuoid · · Score: 2
      Earth's stark contrast of water, ice, cloud and land cannot be beat. The other planets are very beautiful, but nothing comes close to Earth.

      For variety and detail, I'd take Earth; the unique effects of life all over its surface have made an incredible difference. But then we're biased; our eyes have evolved to use the colour palette used on Earth, so of course it looks good to us. Take a look at Jupiter in radio or magnetic spectra some time...

      From a non-homeworld-chauvinistic view, the jewel of the Solar System can only be this one. Pick a spectrum, any spectrum, it's still magnificent. Even buy a cheap telescope and just look at the thing. That's going to be the mother of all tourist attractions five hundred years from now.

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  23. The other obvious joke by hazyshadeofwinter · · Score: 3, Funny

    That's your Norwegian Blue, see, he's pining for the fjords.

    Fifty posts old, and nobody else misquoted the obvious Python reference. And you call yourselves nerds...

    --
    Click here if you just like to click on shit.
    1. Re:The other obvious joke by AndrewRUK · · Score: 2, Funny

      PININ' for the FJORDS?????
      'E's dead, that's what 'e is. The only reason 'e's still sittin' there is 'cos you nailed 'im to the perch.

  24. If you are interested in Earth Pictures by Kinniken · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Check out the Blue Marble pictures. A resolution of 1 pixel/per kilometers for the whole of the planet, which makes the full pictures 40000*20000 pixels big =) They are available in different views (cloudless, with or without the sea floor relief, at night...) and are truly amazing.

    I'm probably going to get a -1 for promoting my own soft, but if your computer cannot handle a 2 gb file in RAM, check my website. I made a soft (approved by the guy who made the picts) for viewing them without much RAM. Only works on macs and PCs, though I'm thinking of a linux version.

    --
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  25. Re:They need geography lessons ! by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Funny
    Greenland is governed by Denmark which makes it part of Europe.

    In other news today, Hong Kong is currently celebrating the fifth anniversary of its move from Europe to Asia. The project was an incredible feat of tectonic engineering, ripping up an entire city from the English east coast and shipping it halfway around the world to a prepared harbour in southern China.

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  26. Re:Yeah, but does it play Ogg? by Jugalator · · Score: 2

    I sense some schizophrenia here...

    Topic: Yeah, but does it play Ogg?
    Content: imagine a Beowulf cluster of those?

    Hm? Or am I wrong and you want a beowulf cluster of earth-sized Ogg players?

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  27. More and better pictures at a NASA site... by Viol8 · · Score: 3, Informative

    This contains load of images taken by the space shuttle. Well worth a look... Earth From Space

  28. Re:They need geography lessons ! by pommiekiwifruit · · Score: 2
    Then, being icelandic, I am half american, half european... :)

    Absolutely.

    Apparently the dividing line goes near Pingvellir, the location of the original Icelandic parliament.

  29. I don't see by zephc · · Score: 2

    I don't see the fnords.

    Oh, FJORDS. oh, yeah, I see those, those are coo.

    --
    "I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
  30. Re:Finger in pic! by zephc · · Score: 2

    Somehow I don't think a finger would cast such a large shadow... =]

    --
    "I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
  31. Study / Counter Study by ch-chuck · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A short time ago the chief chicken-littles of the International Association of Environmental Alarmists and Extreamists (IAEAE) were collectively diving under their beds over a study showing how nearly every sq. inch of the planet has been hideously despoiled by nasty ol' humanity. Well, now comes a counter-study (partly funded by Gordon Moore) which claims "46 percent of Earth is still wilderness" - a salve sure to sooth the conscience of dollar sign-blinking land developers and construction workers everywhere.

    Thus proving that, like statistics, politicians can pick a study to prove any damn thing they want. Meanwhile the truth continues to elude the media manipulated public.

    --
    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  32. re: dunes by prell · · Score: 2, Funny

    from the page: Namib-Naukluft National Park is an ecological preserve in Namibia's vast Namib Desert. Coastal winds create the tallest sand dunes in the world here, with some dunes reaching 980 feet (300 meters) in height.

    ::spits out milk:: *pfff!!* 980 feet??

  33. Re:Iraqi Encampment by glesga_kiss · · Score: 2
    Did anyone think the minefeild seemed a little out of place?

    Of course not! It's a government site. The government want to us to agree to starting a war with the Iraqis. We have to be reminded how....eevil (in a Dr. Evil voice)....the Iraqis are.

  34. Holy crap! by jbarr · · Score: 2

    You mean that the goverment can see us from above?

    --
    My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
  35. It's a shame . . . by theghost · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's a shame that you have to get so far away to appreciate the beauty, what with all the intolerance, hatred and war getting in the way up close.

    --
    The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
    1. Re:It's a shame . . . by susano_otter · · Score: 2

      You don't have to go to space to see the beauty all around you. And you won't leave the evils of human nature behind, either.

      --

      Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

  36. Re: dunes by Remus+Shepherd · · Score: 2

    ::spits out milk:: *pfff!!* 980 feet??

    Yep. Hope your dune buggy has a roll bar. :-)

    --
    Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
  37. Re:Agri-myopia ? by Remus+Shepherd · · Score: 2

    Someone should let these farmers know that if they offset their irrigation circles just a little they'd be able to increase their land coverage

    You're proposing a hexagonal, rather than square, arrangment of circular fields, right? Funny thing is, that's the way they do it in water-poor areas like Arabia. The midwest USA, however, was subdivided into 1 mile square sections by Truman's road infrastructure projects. From the rocky mountains to Ohio, the midwest is all cut up into 1 mile squares. So the fantastic infrastructure that makes America so productive has the side effect of forcing us to grow crops in square rather than hexagonal patterns.

    It's a trade-off. I still think Truman did the right thing.

    --
    Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
  38. Now playing on google by carlcmc · · Score: 2

    slashdot is regularly getting trafic from google. Being both a reader of slashdot and news.google.com, i found it funny that when i was perusing the science news on google the top level link for the "earth as art" story went to slashdot.org.

  39. Well, of course! by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 2

    If earth wasn't artistic, Slartibartfast wouldn't have earned all those awards for his norvegian fjords and coastline!!!

  40. Nothing new by Gorimek · · Score: 2

    Pictures of earth has always been a mainstay of art. They were just done a from a closer vantage point and were called "landscape paintings".