.jpg "In honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, NASA has released a collection of images of our globe as seen from space. Check out the complete set in the slideshow below.")
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the first Earth Day, an event designed to bring awareness to environmental and climate concerns. In celebration of the event, NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies has released a ‘best of’ collection of images of the Earth.
Manned and robotic spaceflight has allowed us to see the planet as was never possible. Images of our “blue marble” have become commonplace and it is hard to believe it was only 50 years ago that the first images of Earth taken in space were shown on television.
Satellites, space stations, Space Shuttles, robotic probes and more have beamed back images of the globe from orbit, the moon and even Mars.
In their most common form, these images are used to help analyze and predict the weather and are even routinely included in our daily weather forecasts. From monitoring the effects of climate change and the recent eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano amaze us today much as they did in 1960.
Below is a collection of images released today by NASA in honor of Earth Day 2010.
