Remember Blue Marble Earth from APOD

[Matt Wastell]

I have this image on my desk top and it is beautiful but something in my mind is not quite right.

Does the land mass look too big compared to the globe?

Or is it me / flat map renditions?

[Kevnool]

That america sure has got a lot bigger lately.
Tektonics <----nope.

Cheers

[jjjnettie]

Racking my brain trying to think of an explanation, but none comes to mind.

[ballaratdragons]

Ego <----Yep :lol:
Propaganda <---- definitely :rofl:

Welcome to Planet America :rolleyes:

[Auster1b]

Remember that your horizon is dependent on your altitude. Even the ISS does not see the whole (half) globe.

Neil.

[Matt Wastell]

Ahhhhhhh, that would explain alot!

[Matt Wastell]

It is a digital projection too

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=76674

[mithrandir]

The photo is taken from closer than the virtual position from where the globe is drawn.
From the distance of the moon you can see about 99.2% of one side of the earth (ignoring atmospheric effects).
At geosynchronous orbit height about 90%
At 1 earth radius about 66%.
The ISS at around 500Km would see about 25%

[jjjnettie]

Cheers for the info. Makes sense now. :)

[OICURMT]

Wrong Wrong Wrong...


McDonalds... :)

[Kevnool]

Thats all good but the pic just had to show the good ole US of a in a big way <------Again.

Cheers

[mithrandir]

The photo is NASA IOTD for 2012-01-26 taken from Suomi NPP which orbits at 824Km. That puts the horizon about 3345 Km away from the satellite and the image covers about 30.75% of one side of the earth, so 15.4% of the total.