Sunset from space.

Quite a beautiful picture taken from a satellite. I'd no idea you'd be able to see some many lights from up there. :smile:

i'd say if it is space, its just so.. looks like its only about 50-100 miles up.

also, it looks like the night side has been time lapsed to brighten the street lamps..

very pretty no matter tho :smile:

also the terminator is not so sharp, it usually contains shades of red.. methinks its a doctored image.

Doesn't look very real to me personally, but I've never seen earth from this sort of distance before to be honest.

I don't think it's real because the 'fade' of the shadow isn't long at all - half of the earth would be basically at noontime and the other half would be at midnight, and a tiny bit would be inbetween.

My life is a web of lies!

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0303/europesunset_livingearth_big.jpg

Considering the location of the one above, I think it's real.

Cassius: I think the fade is quite right. Don't see it relative to the shadow, but in an absolute sense the fade is long enough.

Haha, yeah, I can't see NASA making this up :smile: Also, the sun sets very quickly - the transition from day to night is a rapid one. You aren't going to see the red of a sunset looking straight down on it because that's not how it works. If the image had been time lapsed to give brighter street lights, the day/night line would be much more blurred.

Having been in a solar eclipse, I can say that I could see the darkness rapidly approaching me over the water. I don't see why the line dividing day and night as the sun sets when viewed from above shouldn't be as defined.

You see the bright spot of light in the middle (or somewhere near it) ... thats Belgium !

You see the bright spot of light in the middle (or somewhere near it) ... thats Belgium !

you see that island to the top left of Belium......thats Britain![sorry couldn't help myself ]

looks like its only about 50-100 miles up.

Just to mention, as far as I'm aware of (from instructors and books) the Earth's atmosphere i.e. the beginning of space, is 10 miles straight up from sea level. (16.1 km for all you metric countries)

But I could be wrong.

Crono said:

looks like its only about 50-100 miles up.

Just to mention, as far as I'm aware of (from instructors and books) the Earth's atmosphere i.e. the beginning of space, is 10 miles straight up from sea level. (16.1 km for all you metric countries)

But I could be wrong.

:biggrin:

Dont mean to be blunt, but the atmosphere is devided into 4.

Troposphere
Stratosphere
Mesosphere
Termasphere

Troposphere being where planes fly and where there is water vapour therefore where the weather occurs. In the Mesosphere, is the ozone layer. The Thermasphere reaches to (I think they said 100 miles ASL) after which its the void we call space.

It's fake, someone i spoke to has seen how they made it. Cumon I mean the difference between light and dark in this pic is like 100 miles max! It should be more like 1000 miles!

http://www.snopes.com/photos/sunset.asp

Heres a site about it.

Fake or not it still looks pretty sweet.

the lack of rain clouds over Scotland (or anywhere else come to mention it) suggests that there may be a little fakery involved here somewhere.

and it looks to me like the pic was taken from much more than 50-100 miles up. the little yellow square in the pic is roughly 50 miles square. stand it on end and think of the view from the top of it. i reckon its a few thousand miles up.



[edit]if it was a real pic , that is ,) [/edit]

It's not fake... exactly. it's obveously a composite/edited image, but that doesn't make it bogus.

Quick calculation here:

How long does dusk last guys? 30 min at most! the earth is roughly 25,000 miles around, 30 min is 1/48 revolutions which translates to 520 miles. That seems reasonable in terms of the visable shadow.

And there is no way you can tell how high up it was taken from, as you do not know what angle of view the lense of the camera had.

is it possable to see the mid ocean ridges from space? i mean, theyr thousands of feet deep.
and its NEVER that sunny in Ireland.

Tracer Bullet said:
And there is no way you can tell how high up it was taken from, as you do not know what angle of view the lense of the camera had.

there probably is, since there are plenty of reference points there with known distances, angles etc. i'm sure someone with a better understanding of trigonometery than i have could work out, to the nearest few miles, exactly where it was taken from.

and i dont think the lens has been invented that can capture an 800x600 image from 3 or 4 mm away. i'd be very impressed if it has.

If it was in fact a real picture, there would be some clouds. This picture has none. As well, satelite pictures are always (or mostly) taken straight down. As any major angle will produce to much interfearence from the atmosphere.

The shadow wouldnt look like that either. Its much too focused and close. Lights and water look iffy as well.

The answer from http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030324.html:

Explanation: No single spacecraft or astronaut took this picture. It is a digital composite of archived images taken by several Earth-orbiting satellites and ocean-faring ships. Similar images can be digitally stitched together for any Earth location by John Walker's Earth and Moon Viewer website. Specifically, the daytime land images were taken by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite, while the nighttime images were taken by the DMSP satellites. This image is different from what an astronaut would see for reasons including a complete lack of clouds and an unrealistic exaggeration of lights and contrasts. The image has become both an internet wave in that it continues to circulate as an attachment to digital correspondence, and a modern urban legend. Another image like that is Earth at Night. The reason for the image's continued popularity might be simple: it is really cool looking.

The scattering of lights seems to me somewhat unrealistic as well - why would the Cote D'Ivoire area have more density of lights than Europe?

Eh, whatever. Good picture, anyway.

A similar composited picture is this one:

Bah. Stupid non-allowing of remote image linking.

It's composited, of course (visibility through water - there's no way you could get an image that clear), but very nice nevertheless.

Our Geography teacher has a map of the world at night and it looks just light that.

damn thats a pritty image :smile:

wow.. i wonder how long it would take you guys to suck the life out of a picture of the easter bunny?

its a pretty picture.. regardless of whether or not it's fake

I think someone will have to break the news to Bewbies...

Bewbies said:
wow.. i wonder how long it would take you guys to suck the life out of a picture of the easter bunny?

Im confused...

Bewbies said:
wow.. i wonder how long it would take you guys to suck the life out of a picture of the easter bunny?

is that the one we ate?