In college, I studied the earth, her ecology, geology, climate - the big picture stuff, we just didn't have that many big pictures yet. Boy do we now.
I love you NASA. Even though I can tell you're doing a little PR for yourself here. You deserve it, and mankind should be both thanking you and listening to you. You made a little movie, just briefly outlining what you've been doing with your earth imaging satellites, and what you're learning.
Viewing of this video should be mandatory. Especially in schools. It's magnificent and a little terrifying all at once. I couldn't get it to embed so please do yourself a favor, your kids if you have them, friends too, and watch this amazing little update on our earth and our understanding of it's systems and processes. It is humbling to see how little we know and how much more there is to understand. But we should all understand just exactly where it is we are, and have some clue what is happening on our amazing little planet earth.
NASA's Earth Observatory Site
Click the pretty link and scroll down to The Dynamic Earth video in the middle of the page, just like in these screen captures.
It's hard to keep up with all this science, but I'm trying! Thanks for watching.
Yes, I agree with you: it should be mandatory.
ReplyDeleteBut how many people would really stop to look at this beauty we inhabit and understand the responsibilities we have to keep it beautiful and vibrant and alive? You know that I truly love NASA, to me is like a fairy godmother that brings pictures of dreams, of realities so far away that it makes you want to grow wings like Icarus and fly to them, but not too close to the Sun.
I love to come here because there is nothing more comforting after reading that some moronic tribe somewhere has started another war of destruction, than to find a kindred spirit who understand the hunger for science and beauty holding hands. You certainly do.
All of my tax dollars go to Head Start, NASA, and the National Park Service. That's why I sleep so well.
ReplyDeleteAllegra, you are so eloquent, yes, fairy godmother of information and knowledge, that's what NASA is to me! And you're my internet fairy godmother and friend, so glad to have you stop by. I think Science is beautiful too.
ReplyDeleteNancy, I like the way you think. I'm going to try and be think that way too - with a little going to the EPA and National Archives too!
I love when you post stuff like this. A little science education added to my day! And you make it so fun, too. Please say you were/are a teacher? If not, the world of education is missing out!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jane. I am not a teacher, though I sometimes wish I were. I'd rather be a student, living in a college town, learning all day. I used to teach little kiddies hands on science, art appreciation and some after school fun art/science classes, and worked a few years helping kids with reading, but now that my kiddies are in middle and high school, I languish at my laptop teaching myself!
ReplyDeleteI know I shouldn't say this but every time I look at the pictures of earth from outer space I grow dizzy and woozy. That is it! I think. And what are we doing to it?
ReplyDeleteYes. Viewing should be mandatory. Whether you get woozy or not.
Ms. Moon, I think it's normal to feel dizzy looking at it. Sometimes it makes my head spin, just like when I was a little kid and thought about space and the universe for the first time. It makes no sense, and yet somehow makes perfect sense. I'm stuck on the knowledge that our generation is the first to grow up with the blue marble image in our heads and yet it hasn't changed how we operate as a species one bit. I'm thinking maybe we need to move to the middle and worry about water in the long term!
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing this, Mel.
ReplyDeleteWow.