Our Atmosphere is Escaping!

Oh gahd! Quick! Take a deep breath!! Someone save Minute Earth!!!

What’s that? Oh … we have nothing to worry about? It’s only losing hydrogen and helium? And it will take billions of years to lose that stuff? Whew.

Bonus: Check out my YouTube vid about just how small (and shared) our atmosphere really is.

Source: youtube.com

NASA’s 19-Gigapixel Filmstrip of the Earth

With the newest generation of Landsat satellites up and snappin’, in orbit over 400 miles above us, NASA continues a mission over a generation in the making: Observing a beautiful and changing planet from above.

This video features 56 photos stitched together in a continuous 19-gigapixel image that stretches from Russia to South Africa. Dig in to the interactive “Long Swath” at NASA’s Earth Observatory. This image covers almost 1.7 million square kilometers, but it would take over 300 of them to paint a picture of all of Earth’s surface.

Bonus: Combine this with Google’s Earth Engine to gain a perspective on our planet once reseved for time-traveling astronauts.

(via The Atlantic)

Source: The Atlantic

Typography/Topography An Earth-inspired typeface designed by Siyu Cao that creates shapes and letters from classic typographic map features. The two-dimensional forms are great, but the 3-D carvings really drive it to the mountaintop. I’ve seen a lot of Earth as Art projects, but never a typeface. Excellent work. Bonus: Check out some of my other favorite science-inspired typography here.
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Typography/Topography An Earth-inspired typeface designed by Siyu Cao that creates shapes and letters from classic typographic map features. The two-dimensional forms are great, but the 3-D carvings really drive it to the mountaintop. I’ve seen a lot of Earth as Art projects, but never a typeface. Excellent work. Bonus: Check out some of my other favorite science-inspired typography here.
Zoom Info

Typography/Topography

An Earth-inspired typeface designed by Siyu Cao that creates shapes and letters from classic typographic map features. The two-dimensional forms are great, but the 3-D carvings really drive it to the mountaintop.

I’ve seen a lot of Earth as Art projects, but never a typeface. Excellent work.

Bonus: Check out some of my other favorite science-inspired typography here.

via artandsciencejournal: Mineral Microscopy Stephanie Bateman-Graham does mineral microscopy, or as she prefers to call it “using a low-powered digital toy microscope to take pictures of beautiful minerals”. In these works Bateman-Graham discovers the parts of nature that are weirdly similar to recognizable art styles — from Van Gogh impressionism to the fractured lines of Picasso. I’ve included her descriptions of the three works above: Ecosystem (Moss Agate):  Do you see a mixed population of microbes living together in a complete ecosystem? Actually it’s a microscope view of the mineral Stringy Moss Agate from Lake Bonneville. The material is translucent which gives a watery feel to the image, but it is entirely solid crystal. Heart of Stony Glass (Opalite): Microscope view of the Australian mineral Rosella Opalite. The light bounces around this veined and fractured crystalline material to reveal a heart and vascular system inside the stone. The amazing brushstrokes and textures in this image are all natural. Fire Mountain (Lace Agate): A mountain burns in this microscope view of the mineral Laguna Lace Agate from Mexico. Also known as Crazy Lace Agate. To see more of Bateman-Graham’s works, click here.  - Lee Jones This art really rocks.  I love how both zooming out (see here) and zooming in on Earth can turn it into some of the finest abstract art we have. Neat huh?
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via artandsciencejournal: Mineral Microscopy Stephanie Bateman-Graham does mineral microscopy, or as she prefers to call it “using a low-powered digital toy microscope to take pictures of beautiful minerals”. In these works Bateman-Graham discovers the parts of nature that are weirdly similar to recognizable art styles — from Van Gogh impressionism to the fractured lines of Picasso. I’ve included her descriptions of the three works above: Ecosystem (Moss Agate):  Do you see a mixed population of microbes living together in a complete ecosystem? Actually it’s a microscope view of the mineral Stringy Moss Agate from Lake Bonneville. The material is translucent which gives a watery feel to the image, but it is entirely solid crystal. Heart of Stony Glass (Opalite): Microscope view of the Australian mineral Rosella Opalite. The light bounces around this veined and fractured crystalline material to reveal a heart and vascular system inside the stone. The amazing brushstrokes and textures in this image are all natural. Fire Mountain (Lace Agate): A mountain burns in this microscope view of the mineral Laguna Lace Agate from Mexico. Also known as Crazy Lace Agate. To see more of Bateman-Graham’s works, click here.  - Lee Jones This art really rocks.  I love how both zooming out (see here) and zooming in on Earth can turn it into some of the finest abstract art we have. Neat huh?
Zoom Info
via artandsciencejournal: Mineral Microscopy Stephanie Bateman-Graham does mineral microscopy, or as she prefers to call it “using a low-powered digital toy microscope to take pictures of beautiful minerals”. In these works Bateman-Graham discovers the parts of nature that are weirdly similar to recognizable art styles — from Van Gogh impressionism to the fractured lines of Picasso. I’ve included her descriptions of the three works above: Ecosystem (Moss Agate):  Do you see a mixed population of microbes living together in a complete ecosystem? Actually it’s a microscope view of the mineral Stringy Moss Agate from Lake Bonneville. The material is translucent which gives a watery feel to the image, but it is entirely solid crystal. Heart of Stony Glass (Opalite): Microscope view of the Australian mineral Rosella Opalite. The light bounces around this veined and fractured crystalline material to reveal a heart and vascular system inside the stone. The amazing brushstrokes and textures in this image are all natural. Fire Mountain (Lace Agate): A mountain burns in this microscope view of the mineral Laguna Lace Agate from Mexico. Also known as Crazy Lace Agate. To see more of Bateman-Graham’s works, click here.  - Lee Jones This art really rocks.  I love how both zooming out (see here) and zooming in on Earth can turn it into some of the finest abstract art we have. Neat huh?
Zoom Info

via artandsciencejournal:

Mineral Microscopy

Stephanie Bateman-Graham does mineral microscopy, or as she prefers to call it “using a low-powered digital toy microscope to take pictures of beautiful minerals”. In these works Bateman-Graham discovers the parts of nature that are weirdly similar to recognizable art styles — from Van Gogh impressionism to the fractured lines of Picasso. I’ve included her descriptions of the three works above:

Ecosystem (Moss Agate):  Do you see a mixed population of microbes living together in a complete ecosystem? Actually it’s a microscope view of the mineral Stringy Moss Agate from Lake Bonneville. The material is translucent which gives a watery feel to the image, but it is entirely solid crystal.

Heart of Stony Glass (Opalite): Microscope view of the Australian mineral Rosella Opalite. The light bounces around this veined and fractured crystalline material to reveal a heart and vascular system inside the stone. The amazing brushstrokes and textures in this image are all natural.

Fire Mountain (Lace Agate): A mountain burns in this microscope view of the mineral Laguna Lace Agate from Mexico. Also known as Crazy Lace Agate.

To see more of Bateman-Graham’s works, click here. 

- Lee Jones

This art really rocks. 

I love how both zooming out (see here) and zooming in on Earth can turn it into some of the finest abstract art we have. Neat huh?

edwardspoonhands: Google Earth Engine is a joint project between Google and NASA that allows anyone access to a 30 year time-lapse of the surface of the earth. I made a video about how amazing, terrifying, and important it is. We’ve had an eye on Earth for several decades now, and thanks to the new tool from Google that Hank talks about in his video above, we can see our profound effect on the planet in just a single young lifetime. He notes that we aren’t very good at reconciling data with our own, personal daily existence and the proverbial price of eggs. Maybe that’s why graphs describing the changing climate and numbers such as “400 ppm” aren’t as effective as, say, these images here?
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edwardspoonhands: Google Earth Engine is a joint project between Google and NASA that allows anyone access to a 30 year time-lapse of the surface of the earth. I made a video about how amazing, terrifying, and important it is. We’ve had an eye on Earth for several decades now, and thanks to the new tool from Google that Hank talks about in his video above, we can see our profound effect on the planet in just a single young lifetime. He notes that we aren’t very good at reconciling data with our own, personal daily existence and the proverbial price of eggs. Maybe that’s why graphs describing the changing climate and numbers such as “400 ppm” aren’t as effective as, say, these images here?
Zoom Info
edwardspoonhands: Google Earth Engine is a joint project between Google and NASA that allows anyone access to a 30 year time-lapse of the surface of the earth. I made a video about how amazing, terrifying, and important it is. We’ve had an eye on Earth for several decades now, and thanks to the new tool from Google that Hank talks about in his video above, we can see our profound effect on the planet in just a single young lifetime. He notes that we aren’t very good at reconciling data with our own, personal daily existence and the proverbial price of eggs. Maybe that’s why graphs describing the changing climate and numbers such as “400 ppm” aren’t as effective as, say, these images here?
Zoom Info
edwardspoonhands: Google Earth Engine is a joint project between Google and NASA that allows anyone access to a 30 year time-lapse of the surface of the earth. I made a video about how amazing, terrifying, and important it is. We’ve had an eye on Earth for several decades now, and thanks to the new tool from Google that Hank talks about in his video above, we can see our profound effect on the planet in just a single young lifetime. He notes that we aren’t very good at reconciling data with our own, personal daily existence and the proverbial price of eggs. Maybe that’s why graphs describing the changing climate and numbers such as “400 ppm” aren’t as effective as, say, these images here?
Zoom Info

edwardspoonhands:

Google Earth Engine is a joint project between Google and NASA that allows anyone access to a 30 year time-lapse of the surface of the earth. I made a video about how amazing, terrifying, and important it is.

We’ve had an eye on Earth for several decades now, and thanks to the new tool from Google that Hank talks about in his video above, we can see our profound effect on the planet in just a single young lifetime.

He notes that we aren’t very good at reconciling data with our own, personal daily existence and the proverbial price of eggs. Maybe that’s why graphs describing the changing climate and numbers such as “400 ppm” aren’t as effective as, say, these images here?

Your long wait is over … the new episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart is up! Whose air do we share?

I had a random thought while out jogging recently: With all of the deep breaths I take every day, how much of Earth’s atmosphere do I breathe in and out during a lifetime? Could I be sharing air molecules with Albert Einstein or Charles Darwin or Cleopatra?

And how big IS the atmosphere to begin with? I decided to calculate how many air molecules we might all share. It really makes you think about what we’re putting in the atmosphere, eh?

Thanks for watching, and stay curious! Share with your friends, click here to subscribe, and check out the rest of my science videos on YouTube!

Frozen Glass I was pretty shocked to find out just how little liquid fresh water Earth contains, like we saw in this post. But I was equally shocked to find out that as much as one-fifth of Earth’s fresh water is locked up in the beauty above: Lake Baikal. Siberia’s Lake Baikal, not only the world’s oldest lake at ~25 million years of age, is the largest single fresh water source on the planet. The water is so deep and so pure that when it freezes it becomes a sort of cold, turquoise glass, giving an observer a lens that can see over 100 feet straight down. There’s more pictures not to miss at My Modern Met.
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Frozen Glass

I was pretty shocked to find out just how little liquid fresh water Earth contains, like we saw in this post. But I was equally shocked to find out that as much as one-fifth of Earth’s fresh water is locked up in the beauty above: Lake Baikal.

Siberia’s Lake Baikal, not only the world’s oldest lake at ~25 million years of age, is the largest single fresh water source on the planet. The water is so deep and so pure that when it freezes it becomes a sort of cold, turquoise glass, giving an observer a lens that can see over 100 feet straight down.

There’s more pictures not to miss at My Modern Met.

Water/World Earth contains over 10 million cubic kilometers of liquid fresh water. Most of that water, whose approximate volume compared to Earth is represented by the large water droplet at the top, is buried groundwater, much of which isn’t accessible by humans. Instead of flowing in our rivers and lakes or out of our wells, it’s buried deep inside the rocky nooks and crannies of Earth’s crust. Our ice caps, permafrost and permanent snows hold much more, although it’s equally inaccessible. That smaller water droplet represents all the liquid fresh water that can be accessed by the world’s 7+ billion people. That droplet represents less than 100,000 cubic kilometers, and we have to share, recycle and conserve all that we can. Nearly a billion people don’t have access to clean water, and 2.5 billion don’t have anything resembling modern sanitation. Learn more about how we can all help at the UN’s World Water Day website. More about where to find Earth’s water from the USGS. We live on a blue planet, but only a tiny speck of that blue is available to us. Water, water everywhere but nary a drop to drink/irrigate/wash with. Important to remember how precious that wet stuff flowing out of your faucet is. (image remixed via MarcelClemens/Shutterstock)
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Water/World

Earth contains over 10 million cubic kilometers of liquid fresh water. Most of that water, whose approximate volume compared to Earth is represented by the large water droplet at the top, is buried groundwater, much of which isn’t accessible by humans. Instead of flowing in our rivers and lakes or out of our wells, it’s buried deep inside the rocky nooks and crannies of Earth’s crust. Our ice caps, permafrost and permanent snows hold much more, although it’s equally inaccessible.

That smaller water droplet represents all the liquid fresh water that can be accessed by the world’s 7+ billion people. That droplet represents less than 100,000 cubic kilometers, and we have to share, recycle and conserve all that we can. Nearly a billion people don’t have access to clean water, and 2.5 billion don’t have anything resembling modern sanitation. Learn more about how we can all help at the UN’s World Water Day website. More about where to find Earth’s water from the USGS.

We live on a blue planet, but only a tiny speck of that blue is available to us. Water, water everywhere but nary a drop to drink/irrigate/wash with. Important to remember how precious that wet stuff flowing out of your faucet is.

(image remixed via MarcelClemens/Shutterstock)

Watch the slow creep of spring as it pushes the cold hand of winter back to the frigid north … only to succumb again next year, of course. NASA’s MODIS imager senses Earth’s reflection of both visible and longer wavelength near-infrared light. Plants, full of chlorophyll, absorb most visible light (except for green, of course) and reflect near-infrared. By combining this with the reflection of snow, NASA can watch the yearly cycle of vegetation springing back and falling away. I made a higher-res GIF here, and you can watch the full three-year animation here.
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Watch the slow creep of spring as it pushes the cold hand of winter back to the frigid north … only to succumb again next year, of course.

NASA’s MODIS imager senses Earth’s reflection of both visible and longer wavelength near-infrared light. Plants, full of chlorophyll, absorb most visible light (except for green, of course) and reflect near-infrared. By combining this with the reflection of snow, NASA can watch the yearly cycle of vegetation springing back and falling away.

I made a higher-res GIF here, and you can watch the full three-year animation here.

theatlantic: NASA or MOMA? Here are some pictures. Were they taken in space, or painted here on Earth? See more. [Images: NASA,various artists] It’s harder to tell than you might imagine sometimes.  Want more of this stuff? I did a nearly identical post about a month ago. Great minds think alike, I guess I’m ready for The Atlantic!
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theatlantic: NASA or MOMA? Here are some pictures. Were they taken in space, or painted here on Earth? See more. [Images: NASA,various artists] It’s harder to tell than you might imagine sometimes.  Want more of this stuff? I did a nearly identical post about a month ago. Great minds think alike, I guess I’m ready for The Atlantic!
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theatlantic: NASA or MOMA? Here are some pictures. Were they taken in space, or painted here on Earth? See more. [Images: NASA,various artists] It’s harder to tell than you might imagine sometimes.  Want more of this stuff? I did a nearly identical post about a month ago. Great minds think alike, I guess I’m ready for The Atlantic!
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theatlantic: NASA or MOMA? Here are some pictures. Were they taken in space, or painted here on Earth? See more. [Images: NASA,various artists] It’s harder to tell than you might imagine sometimes.  Want more of this stuff? I did a nearly identical post about a month ago. Great minds think alike, I guess I’m ready for The Atlantic!
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theatlantic:

NASA or MOMA?

Here are some pictures. Were they taken in space, or painted here on Earth?

See more. [Images: NASA,various artists]

It’s harder to tell than you might imagine sometimes. 

Want more of this stuff? I did a nearly identical post about a month ago. Great minds think alike, I guess I’m ready for The Atlantic!

(via pbsarts)

Source: theatlantic