The First Complete View of Earth from the North Pole

[JMH]

This is a very special version of the Blue Marble: Earth captured on its entirety from an altitude of 512 miles (824 kilometers) over the North Pole. Humanity has never had an image so detailed of our home planet from this unique perspective.
It's actually kind of weird, since we are so used to the familiar Western and Eastern hemispheres, taken from Earth's orbital plane.

Here you can clearly see Britain, the whole of Europe, with Spain kissing Northern Africa, the entire Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and almost all of Asia, plus Greenland and North America on the top.

http://gizmodo.com/5919403/the-first-complete-view-of-earth-from-the-north-pole

 

[zigzag3143]

Nice article. Had seen the photo but not the article. Thanks

 

[JMH]

The View from the Top

There have been many images of the full disc of Earth from space—a view often referred to as “the Blue Marble”—but few have looked quite like this. Using natural-color images from the Visible/Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the recently launched Suomi-NPP satellite, a NASA scientist has compiled a new view showing the Arctic and high latitudes.

Ocean scientist Norman Kuring of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center pieced together this composite image of Europe, Asia, North Africa, and the entire Arctic. It was compiled from 15 satellite passes made by Suomi-NPP on May 26, 2012. The spacecraft circles the Earth from pole to pole at an altitude of 824 kilometers (512 miles), so it takes multiple passes to gather enough data to show an entire hemisphere without gaps in the view.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=78349&src=fb