In recent years, the myth that we can clearly see the Great Wall of China from space has been largely busted. Although the wall is long, it’s not very wide and blends in too well with the surrounding environment. While that realization might be somewhat disappointing, there are still plenty of earthly things we can see from space, especially when in low Earth orbit—where satellites and the International Space Station (ISS) hang out.
10Open-Pit Mines
Those who stay in orbit long enough can actually track the seasons based on the planet’s changing topography. However, even us land-dwellers can see this fascinating transformation, thanks to satellite imagery from NASA. When monthly images of the planet are combined in an animation, they reveal the ebb and flow of polar ice, the dry and wet seasons in the tropics, as well as the growth and death cycles of vegetation throughout the world. Perhaps most interesting is seeing how much Arctic ice forms and then recedes each year. To put it into numbers, Arctic sea ice spans an average of 15 million square kilometers (5.8 million sq mi) in the coldest months of the year and then shrinks to about half that in the summer. In comparison, the Antarctic loses almost all its sea ice, going from 18 million to 3 million square kilometers (6.9 million to 1.2 million sq mi).
8Wildfires
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Although we’d expect to see massive volcanic eruptions from space, it’s somewhat surprising to find out that around 50 to 60 eruptions happen on the planet each year and, on any given day, orbiting astronauts can look down on Earth and see a plume of ash and steam rising from one of these natural chimneys. Occasionally, even a volcano’s hot, glowing magma is visible from heights far above the stratosphere. The Sarychev volcano (seen above) in the northwest Pacific Ocean is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and has erupted eight times since 1946. In the 2009 eruption, shock waves opened a hole in the clouds above the blast, allowing astronauts to get an amazingly clear photo of the phenomenon. Some of the other most active volcanoes on the planet are Mount Stromboli in Italy, Mount Etna in Italy, and Mount Yasur in Vanuatu, all three of which have been continuously erupting for hundreds, even thousands of years.
6Phytoplankton Blooms
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There’s no better vantage point than space to see the expansive beauty of the planet and the interconnectedness of the human race. However, even getting hundreds of kilometers above Earth isn’t far enough away to blur some of the ugly sides of life and the divisions we create between each other. Take, for instance, the man-made border between India and Pakistan. These two countries are at such odds that they’ve erected a physical, militarized border which remains lit by floodlights at night to prevent ammunition trafficking and terrorist crossings. There’s such a bright, orange glow along the border that the 2,900-kilometer (1,800 mi) demarcation line is easily pinpointed from the ISS. The border covers a variety of terrain, including cities and deserts, yet is amazingly lit the entire length. Over the past decades, the India-Pakistan border has been one of the most dangerous places in the world, plagued by lawlessness, violence, and deadly drone strikes.
4The 9/11 Attack
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The benefit of looking down on the Earth from above is that it’s sometimes easier to get a real perspective of what’s happening with the planet. One such example of this is with deforestation. If we could stay up there for 30 or 40 years, we could personally see what satellites have been carefully documenting over the years: a consistent and significant loss of trees in some of our forests. The image above, taken by NASA’s Landsat 1 satellite, comes at the end of a long string of photos that reveal the striking change in appearance that occurred in a portion of the Amazon rain forest between 2000 and 2012. What was once a dense, lush area has lost over 2,500 square kilometers (965 sq mi) of forest over those 37 years and now looks noticeably sparse with mere patches of trees. Overall, the Amazon as a whole has lost more than 360,000 square kilometers (139,000 sq mi) since the 1980s due to clear-cutting for roads, timber, agriculture, and other resources.
2Dust Storms
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Modern civilizations have made such an impact on the globe that our political borders are visibly discernible from hundreds of miles in the air. NASA astronaut John Grunsfeld has flown on a space shuttle five times during his career. He explained that wealthy countries are typically lined in green, while poorer countries with less access to water are a shocking brown color. Also, nations that don’t have as much widespread electricity look dim at night and stand in stark contrast to neighboring nations whose bright cities light up the sky. This is especially evident between the borders of North and South Korea. At night, South Korea is lit up like any modern area while North Korea is so dark it virtually disappears. In the picture above, we see South Korea illuminated vibrantly in the bottom right corner (Seoul is the brightest spot) while China is equally dazzling on the other side of the photo. But where’s North Korea? No, it didn’t sink into the ocean; it’s actually the black mass between the lights of South Korea and China. (Also note the curvy, orange border of the DMZ.) The only visible illumination in that area is the capital city, Pyongyang. While North Korea certainly isn’t guilty of light pollution, this image reveals how much of the country is likely living without basic electricity and all that comes with it: heat in the winter, refrigeration, and adequate hospitals. Read more: http://listverse.com/2014/09/05/10-surprising-things-you-can-see-from-space/ 10 Surprising Things You Can See From Space
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