After you look at the picture -- scroll to the bottom to read the description and then back to the picture. Really beautiful sight for anyone to see.
----- THIS PHOTO IS ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. BE SURE TO READ THE TEXT BELOW TO HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT YOU ARE VIEWING. IT IS HISTORIC TOO AS THIS IS THE LAST MISSION FOR COLUMBIA.
The photograph attached was taken by the crew on board the Columbia during its last mission, on a cloudless day.
The picture is of Europe and Africa when the sun is setting. Half of the picture is in night. The bright dots you see are
the cities lights.
The top part of Africa is the Sahara Desert.
Note that the lights are already on in Holland, Paris, and Barcelona, and that's it's still daylight in Dublin, London, Lisbon,
and Madrid.
The sun is still shining on the Strait of Gibraltar. The Mediterranean Sea is already in darkness.
In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean you can see the Azores Islands; below them to the right are the Madeira Islands; a bit
below are the Canary Islands; and further south, close to the farthest western point of Africa, are the Cape Verde Islands.
Note that the Sahara is huge and can be seen clearly both during Daytime and night time.
To the left, on top, is Greenland, totally frozen.
Last edited by Abdul-Raouf; 09-01-2006 at 02:11 PM.
Reason: pic
***** قال ابن أبي مليكة : أدركت ثلاثين من أصحاب النبي - صلى الله عليه وسلم - كلهم يخاف النفاق على نفسه
Ibn Abī Mulaykah said: "I encountered thirty Companions of the Prophet, every one of them fearing hypocrisy for himself." [Muslim]
Our Lord! Verily, we have heard the call of one calling to Faith: 'Believe in your Lord,' and we have believed.
Our Lord! Forgive us our sins and expiate from us our evil deeds, and make us die (in the state of righteousness) along with Al-Abrar
Unfortunately I have to say that this is an "Urban Legend", and it is one of the many many false pictures and messages sent to all of us at one momment or the other.
It has some truth to it, but the message is untrue.
The image above is not a "photograph" in the literal sense. According to NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day web site, it is a computer construct drawn from a variety of sources.
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... 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.
It is a stunning image and the descriptive text accompanying it is at least geographically correct. But it's not a real photo, nor is it a beam of hope from a tragic mission. Break this chain.
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