Europe satellite picture , explain

I'm bored, so are you, lets play detective.
MOD: If its posted already, its nice to bring up old stuff once in a while. Here goes.

This image presents a remarkable view of the North Atlantic Ocean, stretching from the equator and western Africa northward to Iceland and Greenland, with sunset occurring over (north to south) Scandinavia, France, Spain, Algeria, Mali, and the Ivory Coast.

Here is an opportunity for you to play image detective. How on Earth was this image made? Is it a painting, or a map? Is it a photograph? If so, was it taken from a high-flying aircraft, or from outer space? Is it a satellite image, or possibly even something else?

Source



Explain your investigation regarding the picture.

Mod Edit: No Quote/Plagiarism – Please Review This Link.
Mod Edit: External Source Tags Instructions – Please Review This Link.

reply to post by NullVoid


Taken from the crew aboard Columbia?
Explanation- I dropped it in google image search and that's what it said.

reply to post by NullVoid


Based on your title and nothing else, my guess is it's a satellite image of Europe from space. Why are you not convinced?

Its the ' good versus evil ' boundary marker
Or in other words

earthobservatory.nasa.gov...

earthobservatory.nasa.gov...

... it is composed of many elements, collected by a variety of instruments, at different times and places, with several wavelengths of light (and even sound)—combined in a computer to create an "impossible" view of the Earth.

The image itself was generated by the Earth and Moon Viewer, a Web-based tool that produces Earth imagery from several perspectives. The Earth daylit and night time images were developed by The Living Earth.

reply to post by NullVoid


Well this is embarrassing...

I thought you wrote the blurb, but you didn't.

visibleearth.nasa.gov...

Oh well, did I over detectiverise this?

reply to post by NullVoid


Initial thought was that I could see what I think is a plane travelling over the ocean so I must be considerably higher and then I wondered if it had been taken by someone on Concord, except I doubted the shape of the wing.

I am also curious about the colour of the Sahara and how it has extended to the West coast of Africa. The Ice/snow to the left of the picture is brilliant white but the white colour in Africa could possible be a very soft sand, but it looks very strange.

I can't get over how the UK looks as though its basking in sunlight whilst to the East it appears that heavy snow or ice shows through. Usually the UK does not get off so lightly weatherwise.

I also wondered about whether we are seeing a slightly lower sea level as there appear to be more islands in the Atlantic than I remember being there.

Its a beautiful picture though. I hope others have a better handle on it than I.

reply to post by Shiloh7


Having read everyone else's answers I have retired to the corner giggling.

reply to post by NullVoid


a composite piece of artwork - that fails to give a clear picture - it may look pretty - but there are so many things wrong - it hurts

wow - there were no replies when I started mine - but got distracted

though I think the OP wanted to know what other members opinions / deductions were - not simply quote the image source captions

No single spacecraft or astronaut took this picture. It is a digital composite of archived images taken by several Earth-orbiting satellites and ocean-faring ships. Similar images can be digitally stitched together for any Earth location by John Walker's Earth and Moon Viewer website. Specifically, the daytime land images were taken by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite, while the nighttime images were taken by the DMSP satellites. This image is different from what an astronaut would see for reasons including a complete lack of clouds and an unrealistic exaggeration of lights and contrasts. The image has become both an internet wave in that it continues to circulate as an attachment to digital correspondence, and a modern urban legend.

reply to post by NullVoid


i found this quoted on www.hoax-slayer.com... so i guess it's all the things you said

reply to post by NullVoid


Well, obviously the ocean bottom can not be optically seen even from space as it is under several miles of water in places and the mid atlantic ridge among other features is invisible except for non optical frequency's such as radio and radar which suffer severe scattereing due to oceanic water compositon, the light's in the shaded area may suggest that this is a composite of several images or even a overlay of a topographical satellite image with an optical image, it is extremely rare for that much of nothern and western europe and the atlantic to be that clear of cloud and even when it is, it is usually acompanyed by haze (remember it is heavily industrialized and even though the more polluting industry's have long transferred themselves to asia these country's have more cars and people than most other part's of the world in referrence to overall area.
I for one would love a clear map of the ocean bottom but that is not what you have here, this is an overlay at best or a computer composite at worst.
Still a great image.

EDIT OR WHAT ELTON SAID, I should have read that before I posted,

hellobruce
earthobservatory.nasa.gov...

You killed the detective work, some posters (me included) got it wrong.

I did not even aware of the sea topology until I read the answer. And I got wrong in most of the explanation, like how Sahara will not reflect light, should be black, so it will not visible, the sunset light should be straight etc etc.


For those who answered and made up your mind, visit the link above for the correct explanation.
Moral: We have to accept that not all of our assumption are correct, its very enlightening to accept and be corrected and its really worth it to learn where we got it wrong.
So, in your next post in ATS, think about this moral, the other guy actually maybe got it right and you are wrong.

Next guessing game: Chart

delete, already discussed