What is Digg?59 Comments
- Tyrel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@ vibri2001:
Yeah, it isn't an actual video of the entire Earth. It is a computer-generated video with the data of the aurora overlaying a model of Earth. Although it would be possible to view the planet such that it looked all dark except around the images (by being opposite the sun from Earth), it is not possible at the viewpoint this is taken from. It's just a computer effect to make it look better :)
You said "Also, I didn't think any satellites went directly over the poles, I thought they had to be in orbit nearer to the equator to use the Earth's gravitational pull to stay in orbit."
This is certainly not true. The gravity from Earth is equal more-or-less in all directions. I think you're thinking of geosynchronous orbit, in which satellites must orbit far above the equator in order to appear to be not moving from the surface. We have a large number of satellites in polar orbit, in which their orbits always intersect both poles of Earth. - strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"sept. 11th? it must've been terrorist activity! invade autralia!"
Uhmm... you failed your geography class, right? That's Antarctica. - dilbert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would like to see an overlay with an image of the ozone hole.
- Lostcosmos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Has an "on the Earth" picture:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/sept_aurora.html - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1that's like the end of the world or something.....
- Lostcosmos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Also would like to see original however."
High Res TIFF (3.8MB):
http://www.nasa.gov/133709main_FUV_STILL.TIFF - kzinti, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Also, I didn't think any satellites went directly over the poles, I thought they had to be in orbit nearer to the equator to use the Earth's gravitational pull to stay in orbit."
There's lots of satellites that don't orbit over the equator. Gravity has nothing (almost) to do with whether your orbit is inclined. Photo satellites that take ground photos are inclined orbits. All the GPS satellites are in 12-hour orbits. The satellites you're thinking of are communications satellites that are in geostationary orbits: circular orbits, with no inclination to the equator, at at altitude of about 23,000 miles. At that altitude the satellite appears to hang in the sky, in exactly the same position all the time. - Namco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Crap, I was hoping to see an Aurora Snow video :(
Cool nonetheless. - jables, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0wow that looks amazing almost looks photoshoped
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Beautiful
- vibri2001, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The picture looks great, but something just doesn't look right. Why is there a corona (light ring) around the entire planet? shouldn't a port of the planet be in the dark? Also, I didn't think any satellites went directly over the poles, I thought they had to be in orbit nearer to the equator to use the Earth's gravitational pull to stay in orbit.
Maybe someone can clear up my misconceptions. The picture appears to be coming directly from NASA and is not listed as a rendition or mock up, but somethings just don't seem to make sense. - vibri2001, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Thank you all for clarifying my misconceptions. While I knew that all satellites aren't in orbit directly over the equator, for some reason I thought they needed to be in orbit near the center.
- tloftus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Why is there a corona (light ring) around the entire planet? shouldn't a port of the planet be in the dark?"
The IMAGE observations of the aurora are overlaid onto NASA’s satellite-based Blue Marble image. Is essence it is "Photoshopped". I would like to see the original image.
+Digg anyway, it's still flippin' sweet. - danae, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0yes.... does look strange how it has been sped up except the clouds stay still
- mogebier, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Makes you feel like an invisible dot on an invisible dot to see something like that.
- piesforyou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"If you scroll back and forth through the last 50 frames or so, it looks like the green light is coming from a hole in the south pole.
I guess it's a side effect of the way the image is put together?"
Um, isn't that the magnetic pole?
http://www.oxford.emory.edu/OXFORD/ScienceMath/Physics/Index.html"
wow, i'm such a dumbass sometimes!! :D - DrEbola, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0for gods sakes that is bad ass.
- alittlemelty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0in the immortal words of keanu reeves: woah.
- joel2600, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0wow, that is really neat.... kind of makes our planet look like a gigantic eyeball
- Lostcosmos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Also, I didn't think any satellites went directly over the poles, I thought they had to be in orbit nearer to the equator to use the Earth's gravitational pull to stay in orbit."
Image is in "an elliptical polar orbit." : http://pluto.space.swri.edu/IMAGE/spacecraft.html - TomP, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Was it just me who thought this was to do with Vista? Cool anyways :P
- Tom | http://www.tomwrote.info - bradzilla, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0fantastic stuff.
- IKbot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You can't see the original. Read the post!
"glows green in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum"
What visible light color is invisible EM radiation? It isn't! That's why you need visualization tools. - ekkalvia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That's freakin' beautiful, man!
Also would like to see original however. - Endpoint, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0amazing :)
- lemon404, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0astonishing !
- ninjadan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Quite stunning.
- DrSquanto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0this story could get re-submitted if somehow it were paired with google maps
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0***** sweetest thing i've seen this morning
- dylanA, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0very cool
- GlassUser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0How about a video in a standard format?
- battybattybatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Oh, I agree, ver, very insane!
Amazing, yes. Death to us all if we start seeing that ***** in Chitown, yes. - piesforyou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If you scroll back and forth through the last 50 frames or so, it looks like the green light is coming from a hole in the south pole.
I guess it's a side effect of the way the image is put together? - dimatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Cool, i actually have a huge book of these kind of pictures at home
- battybattybatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"I thought they had to be in orbit nearer to the equator to use the Earth's gravitational pull to stay in orbit."
The earth's gravitational pull has very little (in the real sense ofthe word) to do with the rotation or relative loation to the earth. The earth will pull a satellite to it just fine at the equator, the meridian, or the poles - no prob. - slamm6, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It says the video is overlaid on the Blue Marble "image", which leads one to believe the aurora is time lapse, but the earth is a still. This would make sense as the satellite records UV and radio wavelengths, but not visible.
- slamm6, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's not real time, the animation has been sped up. In fact, the goal is to keep the satellite's north-south movement minimal and therefore allow maximal time over the poles for the imaging. This is afforded by the very drawn out elliptical orbit (46,000 km at apogee, 1000 km at perigee).
- battybattybatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"I think you're thinking of geosynchronous orbit, in which satellites must orbit far above the equator in order to appear to be not moving from the surface."
NOT in order to appear, but in fact to stay in a synchronous (same) orbit WITH the geoshpere (earth), in order to accomplish the task at hand. - lukes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0time-lapse photography where clouds don't move. huh.
- mc1123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That, my friends, is called the "hole in the ozone layer".
- listrophy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0On a related note, solar activity is oddly high in the last day or two: http://www.sec.noaa.gov/rt_plots/kp_3d.html
Also, an overlay map of USA and Canada that shows the Kp levels required to see aurora activity:
http://www.sec.noaa.gov/info/kp-aurora.html - slamm6, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0To the above poster's comments, see this:
(http://pluto.space.swri.edu/IMAGE/final_orbit.html)
46000 km = 28,000 mi.
Are you sure you couldn't observe the entire southern hemisphere from 7 earth radii distant ?
I'm not. (strike 1)
Animations does not imply fabrication (strike 2)
And if you've seen aurora borealis movement in videos or in person, it shimmers much quicker than cloud movement (strike 3)
Next batter! - lukes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0These should be called 'animations' and not 'video'. The website misleds people into thinking this is real video footage, where I believe it will be an 'artist's interpretation' of an aurora viewed from that angle, perhaps using data that the satellite discovered. Clue #1: Satellites don't orbit so far up that they can film an entire half of the globe. Clue #2: It says 'Animations' above the links to the video. Clue #3 (And this is the biggie): The clouds don't move during the whole time lapse sequence. But still cool, but no Digg, because I think because of the confusion it's become over-Dugg : )
- Mongoose, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Very cool. +digg
- lukes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0To the second to above poster's comments:
- Animations do imply fabrications. See http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=animation "
The creation of artificial moving images."
- And I do understand that the Aurora (Australis, NOT Borealis in this case) does shimmer quicker than cloud movement. But how do you account for the speed of the rotation of the earth in the animation? The sequence could not be recorded in real life, in 5 seconds a satellite could not move that fast even when going against the . And yes, I have seen lower satellites move in space and in 5 seconds there's no way near that amount of distance covered, and according to http://www.leydenscience.org/physics/gravitation/satspeed.htm "The closer the satellite is to the earth (The smaller r is) the quicker the satellite has to move. The further away the satellite is from the earth (The larger r is) the slower it will move."
Your pitching stinks. - namwob0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0looks like the logo from the ring placed on top of an digital artist's conception of the earth. Why is the aroura not moving with the Earth, and why do they have such a high quailty camera in space =)
- GreenSlabOfClay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"If you scroll back and forth through the last 50 frames or so, it looks like the green light is coming from a hole in the south pole.
I guess it's a side effect of the way the image is put together?"
Um, isn't that the magnetic pole?
http://www.oxford.emory.edu/OXFORD/ScienceMath/Physics/Index.html - M10REN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0A fish-eye lens can easily take pictures of half the earth, and animation could be time-lapsed photography.
- weirdone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0touched up image that wouldn't be seen in visible light spectrum =/
no digg because its also low res - Dirk7589, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Just freakin amazing, that's all I have to say juist amazing. I am deginaetly going to put this on my blog maybe even show my science class.
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