Home planet seen from space in 2022
Another year, another trip around the sun!
I’ve already done those trips more than I care to tell you. But still, I’m just as mesmerized by what our planet looks like from space now as I was more than half a century ago. That’s when I saw for the first time:
Astronaut William Anders captured the surface of the Earth and the Moon from lunar orbit on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. (Thanks: March to the Moon NASA/ASU)
It’s the iconic “Earthrise” photo. Of course, this is not one of the 2022 images of Earth from space that I present below. But I thought I should start there – for context. The famous photo was taken in 1968 by astronaut William Anders when he and his two crewmates orbited the moon during the Apollo 8 mission.
If it looks different than other versions you’ve seen, that’s because the photo usually is is presented on its side, when the Moon’s horizon is horizontal. The version above is different. It’s a scan of the original Ektachrome transparency – film wheels and all – in the orientation Anders used to shoot.
Nature photographer Galen Rowell described this image as “the most impressive environmental photograph ever taken”, and it has even credited “One of the most important photographs of all time”.
That’s because it was one of the first images to show us what our planet looked like from very far out in space. And like Anders himself put that: “The view shows the beauty of the earth and its fragility. It helped start the environmental movement. That little moody thing you and I enjoy is just the skin of the apple.”
Today, seeing the Earth from space is no longer new. Yet technological innovations continue to make remote sensing images attractive, perhaps more so now than ever before. And not just because the pictures can be amazingly beautiful. Like the Earthrise photo, they can help remind us that if we’re not careful, we can seriously disrupt the life-sustaining systems of our home planet.
With that in mind, I invite you to check out the images below – some of my favorites from 2022. Also, be sure to check out Part 1 of this mini-series by clicking here.
Highlights of 2022
Okay, on to the pictures. Let’s start with the one at the top of the article. Here it is again, so you don’t have to scroll up:
Mexico’s Adair Bay wetlands as seen from the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA Earth Observatory)
This image struck me as a beautiful example of “eARTh” with its intricate patterning and stark contrast with its bold colors. At first glance, it might look like a false-colored satellite image. But it’s actually a photo taken by a crew member aboard the International Space Station on August 1, 2022. The image shows Mexico’s Adair Bay (also known as Bahia Adair) wetlands, which mark the transition between the Great Altar Desert. the top of the picture and the brilliant turquoise waters of the Gulf of California.
Wetlands provide the perfect environment for mangrove trees and shrubs and other salt-tolerant vegetation, helping to create a rich coastal environment. Watercourses passing through wetlands have a beautiful fractal-like appearance. (For a full-size, clickable version of this image, see This post at NASA’s Earth Observatory.)
An erupting volcano seen from about 500 miles away in space
Some of my favorite images of 2022 – and of all time – come from remote mapper Pierre Markus, who created the following image using data from the Sentinel-2 satellite:
Satellite view of the erupting Shiveluch volcano in Kamchatka, Russia. (Credit: Copernicus Sentinel data processed by Pierre Markusen)
Combining visible and infrared light, it shows Russia at 10,771 feet Shiveluch volcano erupted on December 3, 2022. Shiveluch is one of the largest and most active volcanic structures on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, with at least 60 major eruptions during the Holocene (the last 11,700 years of Earth’s history). See original full size image here.
Here’s another great picture from Markus on another hot topic:
An infrared satellite view of New Mexico’s Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire on May 13, 2022. (Credit: Copernicus Sentinel data processed by Pierre Markuse)
Among his many pictures Flickr image stream, this one caught my eye because of its beautiful color and the intricate patterning of the mountains and water bodies. But the subject is quite serious: This is an infrared image of parts of The Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire in New Mexico, acquired by the Sentinel-2 satellite on May 13, 2022. At this point, two fires that had started separately. in April was controlled as one gigantic forest fire.
In the image, which is about 150 miles wide, areas of active burning appear in orange and yellow. Rusty red tones reveal large areas of land that had already burned. Much more scorched earth is outside the frame.
When the fire was fully contained on August 21, 534 square kilometers had burned – an area larger than the city of Los Angeles. This made it the largest wildfire in New Mexico history. It was also the most destructive, as at least 903 structures were destroyed.
On the same day that Pierre Markuse published this false-color image, I used the Sentinel-2 images to create a visualization simulating the flyover of the fire. Here it is:
Colorado River Basin
Drought was a major factor in the spread of the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire. On a much larger scale, these conditions – which scientists have described as mega-resilience – had originated in the Colorado River basin. in crisis.
Pictures of the area from space are often quite beautiful, like the next one, from space NASA Earth Observatory websitepoint:
Lake Powell, the second largest reservoir in the United States, as seen by the Landsat-9 satellite on August 6, 2022. (Credit: NASA Earth Observatory)
This is how the Landsat-9 satellite saw Lake Powell and much of the surrounding Colorado River basin on August 6, 2022. The image is about 120 miles across diagonally. The lake—the second largest reservoir in the United States—is a dark, sinuous feature that contrasts dramatically with the multihued and intricately patterned desert landscape.
However, the picture alone does not easily reveal the increasingly dire situation of the 40 million people who depend on the water of the Colorado River Basin. So I combined it with a reference image acquired by Landsat-8 on August 16, 2017 to create this before-and-after animation:
A before-and-after animation showing the shrinking of Lake Powell on the Colorado River between August 2017 and August 2022. (Credit: NASA Earth Observatory)
Between the two image acquisitions, the height of Lake Powell captured by Glen Canyon Dam, dropped nearly 100 feet reaching at its lowest level since it was filled in the mid-1960s. When this has happened, the tank has shrunk so much that it is easily visible from space – like the animation shows.
Downstream from Lake Powell is Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, and it too is at record lows. The situation has gotten so bad that it’s getting close to where Reserve Force Chief Bob Martin Glen Canyon Dam, has described “a perfect doomsday scenario”.
Bankrupt policymakers and water management leaders may finally be able to figure out a way to put things in the Colorado River Basin on a more sustainable path.
On a happier note…
I leave you with this:
Aurora borealis as seen from space on February 4, 2022. (Credit: NASA Earth Observatory)
As I noticed in the the first part of this series, Such a black-and-white satellite image may not seem as fascinating as a colorful one. But, at least for me, it’s just as dazzling.
Bought this Finland’s nuclear power plant satellite 4 February 2022. It reveals swirling streams of light and eddies over central Canada and Hudson Bay – the Aurora borealis.
Night view it was made possible by a special sensor on the satellite called “Day-night band,” which measures nighttime light emissions and reflections, including city lights, reflected moonlight, ships at sea—and the glow of the northern lights. (For an explanation of the northern lights, see my November post with a similar image: “A view from space as the aurora borealis set the sky ablaze above Canada.”)
I hope you have found inspiration in the images I have presented here. I also hope they have conveyed an idea that author Jeffrey Kluger expressed particularly beautifully in his book, “Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Moon Walk.” Writing about the Earthrise image taken by William Anders, Kluger stated that it “finally makes people realize that worlds—like glass—break, and that the world in the picture may need to be tended to more tenderly than humans ever have.”