4/6: Water vapor earth
 

http://cellar.org/2002/watervaporearth.jpg

It looks like a ball o' flame, but it's actually a picture of the earth - the water vapor of the earth. The satellites record the wavelengths that pick up the water vapor. The bright areas are actually the dry areas, and the dark spots are storms and high cloud tops.

Reference on the photo
 

Anyone able to determine where on earth (pun intended) that photo is located above?

I can't see any obvious landmasses in the photo.

Love the swirling cloud effects, though. It'd be cool to pair it with a nice photo of, say Jupiter or one of the other gas giant planets.

Like this: (hope this works)

http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/...tent/9929x.jpg

Or maybe it's 5 AM and I should go to bed. you make the call. :o

Where?
 

Just guessing by it's location on the globe, the yellow smear might be the Sahara? (which would be an extremely typical place to take a picture of). Of course, that does run into problems when you try to place the other 7 or so yellow spots.

Re: Where?
 

Look closely: you can see a coastline to the right of the big yellow spot. From the shape of it, it looks like the western coast of South America. It would make logical sense, given the dark spots populating the equatorial regions. As for the other yellow spots, use whatever geographical knowledge/resources you have, as I don't know where exactly they might be.

-Cyc

EDIT: Undertoad, your explanation behind the meaning of the yellow and black spots is wrong. A look here shows that the yellow is an area with high water vapor concentrations, while black spots are relatively dry areas. Despite that, I still stand by my guess for the location.

Re: Re: Where?
 

Call your cable TV provider now!

APOD strikes again ..

nice pics....:3eye:

Re: Reference on the photo
 

over australia i think it is, barely definable but you can see tasmania