Todays pic is another of those fascinating views from the International Space Station, although similar to the views seen from false images that we've seen before I thought it was worth posting due to the fact that it is a true image of how day passes into night.
Earth at Twilight
No sudden, sharp boundary marks the passage of day into night in this gorgeous view of ocean and clouds over our fair planet Earth. Instead, the shadow line or terminator is diffuse and shows the gradual transition to darkness we experience as twilight. With the Sun illuminating the scene from the right, the cloud tops reflect gently reddened sunlight filtered through the dusty troposphere, the lowest layer of the planet's nurturing atmosphere. A clear high altitude stratospheric layer, visible along the dayside's upper edge, scatters blue sunlight and fades into the blackness of space. This picture actually is a single digital photograph taken in June of 2001 from the International Space Station orbiting at an altitude of 211 nautical miles.
Credit: ISS Crew, Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Lab, JSC, NASA
A larger version of the second pic can be found here, this is a 732K Jpeg image.
Previous Pic Of The Day posts
22nd Apr 03
19th Apr 03
18th Apr 03
16th Apr 03
14th Apr 03
12th Apr 03
11th Apr 03
Earth at Twilight
No sudden, sharp boundary marks the passage of day into night in this gorgeous view of ocean and clouds over our fair planet Earth. Instead, the shadow line or terminator is diffuse and shows the gradual transition to darkness we experience as twilight. With the Sun illuminating the scene from the right, the cloud tops reflect gently reddened sunlight filtered through the dusty troposphere, the lowest layer of the planet's nurturing atmosphere. A clear high altitude stratospheric layer, visible along the dayside's upper edge, scatters blue sunlight and fades into the blackness of space. This picture actually is a single digital photograph taken in June of 2001 from the International Space Station orbiting at an altitude of 211 nautical miles.
Credit: ISS Crew, Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Lab, JSC, NASA
A larger version of the second pic can be found here, this is a 732K Jpeg image.
Previous Pic Of The Day posts
22nd Apr 03
19th Apr 03
18th Apr 03
16th Apr 03
14th Apr 03
12th Apr 03
11th Apr 03
