Blue Marble Eastern Hemisphere: NASA Releases Another High-Definition Image Of Earth (PHOTO)

"Blue Marble 2012," a stunning image of Earth that NASA released last week, captured the imagination of the Web. It was among the most popular posts on The Huffington Post, and according to MSNBC's Photoblog, it has already been viewed more than 3.1 million times on Flickr, making it among the site's most-viewed images.

Now, citing "public demand," NASA has released another HD image of Earth. This one, however, like the original 1972 "Blue Marble" image, offers a view of portions of the Eastern Hemisphere.

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According to NASA, the image was taken by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard the Suomi National NPP satellite.

The spacecraft, which was sent into orbit last October, will be used to forecast weather and to study climate change.

"Blue Marble Eastern Hemisphere" is composed of data gathered from six orbits of the Suomi NPP on Jan. 23, 2012. The satellite orbits Earth 14 times per day at an altitude of 512 miles.

From the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Flickr Page:

Compiled by NASA Goddard scientist Norman Kuring, this image has the perspective of a viewer looking down from 7,918 miles (about 12,742 kilometers) above the Earth's surface from a viewpoint of 10 degrees South by 45 degrees East. The four vertical lines of 'haze' visible in this image shows the reflection of sunlight off the ocean, or 'glint,' that VIIRS captured as it orbited the globe.

The original "Blue Marble," a photograph captured by the Apollo 17 crew while they were on their way to the moon in 1972, was taken at a distance of 28,000 miles, according to Genome Biology.

How do the two images compare? Which one do you like better? Let us know in the comments.

Click here to see "Blue Marble 2012," the image NASA released last week.

LOOK: Eastern Hemisphere - Blue Marble 2012

LOOK: 1972 Blue Marble Image:

Comments

[Barry Pyne]

10:04 PM on 05/17/2012

The Earth is Our Mother...The Earth is Our Mother...The Earth is Our Mother...The Earth is Our Mother...The Earth is Our Mother...The Earth is Our Mother...The Earth is Our Mother...The Earth is Our Mother...The Earth is Our Mother...The Earth is Our Mother.........

[Joseph Veverka]

05:04 PM on 02/07/2012

There is a hugh difference in clouds coverage in the 72 image which means the southern hemisphere was cooler then.

[monkbot]

08:20 AM on 02/07/2012

It's so obviously digitally composed. To me the blue marble picture is much better. It doesn't look like it's populated by Sims.

[Wholly Guacamole]

01:30 AM on 02/07/2012

Amazing images! Oh, look -- THERE'S my cell phone!!

[madcityy]

03:57 PM on 02/06/2012

BIG DEALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL..............HAVEWE FED ALL THE HUNGRY YET???

[JeffJeckyll]

03:42 PM on 02/06/2012

too bad it's infested with humans.

[Joseph Veverka]

05:02 PM on 02/07/2012

Don't worry we're working on it.

[fjpoblam]

02:56 PM on 02/06/2012

I think I prefer the more recent one, as I suspect the colors are more true-to-life. Gee, whiz, wotta pic. That one plus the previous one (copy available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/6760135001/sizes/l/in/photostream/ ) I found truly awesome. I'm easily taken in.

[surfirdave]

02:41 PM on 02/06/2012

WHAT A GREAT PLACE!!!!

[keme]

08:04 PM on 02/05/2012

"That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam..."

- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw

[Joseph Veverka]

05:10 PM on 02/07/2012

And traveling at 60k an hour. Feeling a little small are you. To think we live on such a small island in the middle of no where with only each other is both exciting and frightening. Especially with so many intent on making waves and talk of blowing it up, as if the is some where else to go....!

[Rocky Sylvester]

04:55 PM on 02/05/2012

The earth was a lot more polluted in the 1970's then today. Pretty obvious if you're old enough to remember. The developed world has improved vastly. Remember the days of leaded fuel and soot
on everything? Whole other story when talking third world unfortunately.

Amazing how much greener the earth is today.

[rasso]

01:06 AM on 02/07/2012

So just to be sure -- the new image shows the earth to appear cleaner and more green in present day because it is now less polluted, and not because of improvements in camera equipment, such as the advent of high-definition digital imaging? Again, just making sure.

[Issa Eric Chua]

05:25 PM on 02/07/2012

hi

[funfacts2012]

04:42 PM on 02/05/2012

It's quite obvious from both photos that the Earth is indeed flat.

[Thomas Stieglitz]

04:56 PM on 02/05/2012

....and very blue.

[Joseph Veverka]

05:14 PM on 02/07/2012

Back in the day the planet was thought to be green, as in God's green Earth"per-satillite that is.

[watching while living]

04:30 PM on 02/05/2012

This is the explanation given, but I don't believe it. The so called glint reflecting from the ocean, or however they put it, is perfectly spaced where from the angle shown we see four bands of haze. If this is what they say, wouldn't we just see one band? No? More than one? Well, explain the equally spaced part... really, look at it, does that look natural? That effect is not seen in the 1972 picture, but in all due fairness, the photo technology used was probably different in the two pictures. Or maybe, it's that HAARP machine doing it's thing. If you still disagree, please respond with something that will convince me otherwise...

[rj74210]

04:55 PM on 02/06/2012

The image does not represent the earth in one instant of time, but is an assemblage of several images taken on successive orbits. Because the satellite is "only" 8,000 miles up, it cannot see the entire earth at once. The satellite scans vertical strips of the surface as it orbits the earth in a polar orbit. Once it has scanned the entire surface, the strips are assembled into one big image of the entire planet. Because the earth rotates under the satellite from right to left as the satellite overflies from top to bottom or bottom to top (i don't know which) ... during four of the passes the satellite imaged the sun glint (which moves from east to west as time passes in the day and the earth rotates under the sun and under the satellite). So, when they assembled the shots, they ended up with four sun glints. Perhaps someday they'll redo the shot without sun glints by timing the scans at a different time of day.
As for the original 1971 shot, it is a single shot of the entire planet onto Ektachrome film, from much farther away (28,000 miles).
Does that explain it for you ?

[Joseph Veverka]

05:25 PM on 02/07/2012

No, the article doesn't say its a composite. It say the photo taken at 28k miles and the bands would have appeared in the composite. There appears to be more moisture in the air in the 72 photo that could have caused the bands. There also appears to be many more storms in the 72 photo.

[Ayesha Khan]

04:13 PM on 02/05/2012

Oh my what a captivating view, how beautiful the Earth is, but how sad the way we all are making a mess of it---We the unfamiliar habitats of this lovely planet, deserves nothing but Trash---

[Joseph Veverka]

05:26 PM on 02/07/2012

% billion years in the making. 100 hundred tom destroy it and no where else to go.

[Coma]

03:27 PM on 02/05/2012

I always thought it was just me, but I guess 1972 WAS blurry.

[Patricia Isabel]

02:47 PM on 02/05/2012

Anyone notice how small Antarctica looks now compared to then?

[squeak571]

02:51 PM on 02/05/2012

Yes but there's also a slightly different camera angle

[JaimeIrvine]

04:01 PM on 02/05/2012

Omg and Africa is getting larger and moving south! I bet bush caused that!

[dspalding]

04:29 PM on 02/05/2012

amazing how much is blamed on him....LOL