Section Two of Three . . . . listing 12 thumbnails of the larger earth photos used in the design of Mother Millennia. Next to each thumbnail is the caption provided for that image by the Johnson Space Center's website. (The group of 12 thumbnails is divided into three sections of four photos each to reduce load time waiting. At the bottom of each list of four thumbnails, there are link buttons that go to the others.) Clicking on the thumbnail itself will give you a larger version of the photo, but not as large as the ones available at the JSC site. |
JSC Photo "Earth from Space" website |
Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is a complex assemblage of hundreds of individual coral reefs that extend along the Queensland coast of Australia for approximately 1200 miles (2000 kilometers). The reefs in this photograph, some of the largest within the Great Barrier Reef province, are located along the eastern coast of Cape York Peninsula, near the northern end of the largest and longest coral formation in the world. Many of the reefs are named-the large reef, approximately 13 miles (20 kilometers) from the coast, is Magpie Reef; the large reef south of Magpie is Heoge Reef. (Refer to STS-59-L22-035 for a synoptic photograph and additional information about the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef.) |
JSC Photo "Earth from Space" website |
Greenland The southern tip of Greenland is seen in this high-oblique, stark photograph of the world's largest island. The blackness of space contrasts sharply with the whiteness of clouds, ice, and snow. Cloud-free conditions existing along the southern coastal area emphasize the deeply indented fjords along the coast. A close look at the white areas reveals three different features: snow and ice on the land; cloud formations; and wispy-looking ice floes off the southeast and the southwest tip of the fjord-lined coast. The floes are moved by the East Greenland Current to the south-southwest, and larger ice packs developing north along the east coast. Greenland has the only surviving continental glacier in the Northern Hemisphere. This ice sheet covers seven-eighths of Greenland's surface and contains an estimated 11 percent of the world's fresh water. |
JSC Photo "Earth from Space" website |
Kalahari, South Africa Several features are visible in this south-looking, low-oblique photograph of the Republic of South Africa-the southern extent of the reddish-brown Kalahari Desert with its northwest-southeast-trending sand dunes and dry lakebeds to the northwest; the westward-flowing Orange River south of the true desert; Cape Town, the Cape of Good Hope, and Cape Agulhas barely discernible near the southern horizon; and the cape ranges of folded mountains near the extreme southern point of South Africa. The area between the Kalahari and the southern mountains, the heart of South Africa, is not mountainous, but is an elevated plateau with some hilly topography. Much of the plateau, some of it 5000 feet (1525 meters) above sea level, is covered by tall grasses that give a prairie-like appearance. Some areas surrounding the elevated plateau (called the veld by Dutch settlers) contain sizable escarpments that drop several thousand feet (several thousand meters). |
JSC Photo "Earth from Space" website |
Kalimantan, Borneo The Government of Indonesia provides financial incentives for its citizens to emigrate from the main island of Java and establish settlements on many of Indonesia's 13,000 other islands. This photograph of a vegetal (dark) plume adjacent to the coastline of western Kalimantan Barat Province on Borneo provides a glimpse of how the redistribution of the population is affecting a small section of the west coast of the province. The equatorial town of Pontianak is barely discernible along the banks of the Landak River in the northeast corner of the photograph. The shore current of this part of the South China Sea is carrying southward the plume material of the westward flowing, multichanneled Kapuas River. Sediment streamers intermingle with the darker vegetal plume. Further west is a definite plume boundary with the blue waters of the South China Sea. The light green, deforested coastline is distinguishable from the darker, undisturbed inland patches of dense rain forest. |
