Sunset From Space

[WildaBeast]

A powerpoint presentation containing several photos of the earth from space made the rounds at work today, and one of the photos included was the one seen at http://www.snopes.com/photos/space/sunset.asp

The snopes page led to a discussion. We know the image is made up of composite images, but is that what a sunset seen from space would actually look like? If not, what would it look like?

[Tootsie Plunkette]

Sunset from the Space Shuttle.

[Spam & Cookies-mmm]

Crete from space.

Originally Posted by WildaBeast

http://www.snopes.com/photos/space/sunset.asp

The ocean in that shot is a GIS base, not sat based. You can't see the depth of the ocean like that from a visible image sat picture. It is an image I can generate in Matlab (and lots of other programs, but I have Matlab) using digital elevation models and color coding (darker blue = deeper water). The landmass part looks like a land use model output (again, not sat based). I'm not sure about the lights. The day/night terminator does not look like that at all (at least from the sat images I've used/seen).

[geminilee]

If the pic Spam&Cookies posted is from space, then I at least can see relative ocean depth from space. You can see a subtle color variation that looks very much like a shallow area leading from the mainland to the island.

Originally Posted by geminilee

If the pic Spam&Cookies posted is from space, then I at least can see relative ocean depth from space. You can see a subtle color variation that looks very much like a shallow area leading from the mainland to the island.

All I know is the ocean image on the snopes page looks EXACTLY like the one I can create using the mapping functions in Matlab (and the included digital terrain model).