As any Mouseketeer can tell you, it’s a small world after all. But to really get a sense of how small the Earth is you need to see it from space. Once you get over the thrill of going around the world in 92 minutes, the little blue planet must seem somewhat insignificant. How then can we make the view more interesting to our astronaut observers? Turn on a lot of lights? How about something less dramatic? Take some selfies. A lot of selfies.
Last Earth Day NASA took a Global Selfie made up of over 36,000 photos taken around the world and posted it on social media. The result is a 3.2 gigapixel mosaic of … well, of us. That’s a billion pixels. And it’s zoomable, so you can scan and explore all 36,422 photos in detail. An important reminder of just how crowded the Earth can be? Or the ultimate narcissistic photo? What, for instance, would aliens think of us if they saw it? This year’s Earth Day is April 22nd. It’s estimated the Earth will have about 83 million more inhabitants by then. Ready for your close-up?
