Our special Earth

[Stravinsk]

The images are real, taken from different orbits. One lower one higher. Space has lots of room for orbits

A 'Blue Marble' image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's most recently launched Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed 'Suomi NPP' on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin.

Suomi NPP is NASA's next Earth-observing research satellite. It is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth.

Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS.

Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring
Last Updated: July 31, 2015
Editor: NASA Administrator
​

Earth Day (8,192 by 8,192 pixels, 9.1 MB JPEG)
Earth Night (8,192 by 8,192 pixels, 4.2 MB JPEG)

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Robert Simmon, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data from Chris Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center). Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, NOAA, and the Department of Defense.​

Sigh. Here come the excuses.

Whatever height the image is taken from, the relative sizes of land masses to water to other land masses on the globe will not change.

They are cartoons, friend. A cartoon you believe you live on.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Sigh. Here come the excuses.

Whatever height the image is taken from, the relative sizes of land masses to water to other land masses on the globe will not change.

They are cartoons, friend. A cartoon you believe you live on.

That's not true, I'd draw a cone representing the coverage of a photo taken from 1000 miles height and another from 3000 miles and show that the latter covers more than the former but it is not worth my effort.

 

[Stravinsk]

That's not true, I'd draw a cone representing the coverage of a photo taken from 1000 miles height and another from 3000 miles and show that the latter covers more than the former but it is not worth my effort.

MoreCoffee, you are going to work yourself into a pretty deep hole here. I suggest you leave before you become a blubbering mess.

Based on percentages - what percentage does North America take up on the Globe in the 2012 picture, compared to what percentage does it take up on the 2013 picture? Are you saying they are the same? Really?LOL

 

[MoreCoffee]

MoreCoffee, you are going to work yourself into a pretty deep hole here. I suggest you leave before you become a blubbering mess.

Based on percentages - what percentage does North America take up on the Globe in the 2012 picture, compared to what percentage does it take up on the 2013 picture? Are you saying they are the same? Really?LOL

really

 

[Stravinsk]

really

Yes really. What you refer to only becomes applicable when one gets very near to the earth. Then your field of view is limited to what is in front of you.

However, both images are from a field of view that is far from the Globe. So no, the relative sizes of the land masses will NOT change from this perspective.

They are cartoons!

 

[MoreCoffee]

Yes really. What you refer to only becomes applicable when one gets very near to the earth. Then your field of view is limited to what is in front of you.

However, both images are from a field of view that is far from the Globe. So no, the relative sizes of the land masses will NOT change from this perspective.

They are cartoons!

nope

 

[MoreCoffee]

There are literally an infinate number of possible orbits for an Earth satellite. While there are special orbits that are designed for specific purposes, two general classes of orbits have come into wide spread use for meteorological observations of the Earth: geostationary orbits and sun-synchronous near-polar orbits. In spite of the qualifiers, the sun-synchronous orbits are normally just refered to as polar orbits.

Geostationary orbits are circular orbits that are orientated in the plane of the Earth's equator. By placing the satellite at an altitude where it's orbital period exactly matches the rotation of the earth (35,800 km), the satellite appears to "hover" over one spot on the Earth's equator. While geostationary satellite are ideal for making repeated observations of a fixed geographical area centered on the equator, they are far enough away from the Earth to make it difficult to obtain high quality, quantitative observations. The current generation of geostationary meteorological satellite are truely technological marvels. These satellites, however, do not see the poles at all, and to get global coverage of just the equatorial regions, you need a network of 5-6 satellites.

A satellite in lower Earth orbits is better positioned to obtain high quality remote-sensing data. If placed in a polar orbit, the Earth will rotate beneath the orbiting satellite allow global coverage from a single satellite. The critical design goal then is to place the satellite in an orbit that is low enough to permit a relatively short orbital period while at the same time the orbit is high enough to permit observation of a wide enough swath so that during a single orbit the Earth will rotate by less than the scan swath of the satellite's instrumentation. By placing a satellite at an altitude of about 850 km, you get an orbital period of roughly 100 minutes. At this altitude, you can get true global coverage if the scan swath of the satellite's instrumenation is about 3000 km.

The orbit, however, can be improved if the orbital plane is inclined slightly away from a true N-S orbit. In this case, the asymmetric gravitational pull of the Earth introduces a slow precession in the orbital plane. With a inclination of about 98.7 degrees, the orbit will precess at almost exactly the same rate that the Earth rotates around the sun. That means that the satellite's orbital plane will appear to be fixed with respect to the sun, or sun-synchronous. Due to the inclination away from N-S, these satellites do not go directly over the poles, but do get close enough to provide true global coverages from a single satellite. Since the orbit is aligned with respect to the sun, in fact, you get twice daily coverage of every portion of the globe. -- https://www.rap.ucar.edu/~djohnson/satellite/coverage.html

 

[Stravinsk]

MC, I'm not going to bother to find out where you copied that from (the nasa site, I presume?)

Here are 2 pics of the Holy Bible. The original is the smaller one. It's smaller in the picture but let's say that this isn't a picture but seeing 2 bibles at 2 different distances.

In the larger picture - do the words "Holy Bible" match with the relative size of the book compared to the smaller version?

Because that is your argument in a nutshell.

 

[MoreCoffee]

it's the wrong bible

 

[Andrew]

Well since we have no flat earthers to debate us we can move on?
Yes the Earth is very special and unique and so loved by God.

 

[Arsenios]

Well, commercial aviation does fly "great circle" routes for fuel economy...

And does so in all directions...

Affirming a global shape...


Arsenios