Mother Nature is an abstract artist

July 9, 2008 7:48 AM

30 Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth "From 400 miles away, the earth transforms into abstract art. The global landscape is impressionist, cubist and pointillist." Nice NASA images from 2000, downloadable as wallpaper.
posted by CunningLinguist (16 comments total)

Awesome. And perhaps I shouldn't admit this, but the first thing I did was to read up on Landsat 7 to get the orbital information. It sees the entire Earth every 16 days for 5 years (or more? yes, it seems to still be alive). Has anyone put together time-series pictures from these?

Mother Nature is an abstract artist.

Or, in this case, human beings.
posted by DU at 7:59 AM on July 9, 2008

More from them humans: Japanese rice field art. Totally wild.
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:04 AM on July 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

Gorgeous. Thank you.
posted by prefpara at 8:04 AM on July 9, 2008

Interesting thought, DU. And thanks for the post, CL! These are beautiful!
posted by brundlefly at 8:10 AM on July 9, 2008

That reminds me of the Earth as Art site. There's an index too, looks like some of the images in the link originated there.
posted by IvoShandor at 8:26 AM on July 9, 2008

More from them humans: Japanese rice field art. Totally wild.

Christ, is there anything the Japanese CAN'T do with rice?! They're like rice-wizards or something.
posted by milarepa at 8:43 AM on July 9, 2008

These are breathtaking. Thank you.
posted by Pecinpah at 8:51 AM on July 9, 2008

Fantastic! And to think all sorts of people are always trying to find excuses to cut the space budget.
posted by chimaera at 8:58 AM on July 9, 2008

Don't worry. As long as they don't cut the false-coloring budget the pictures will still look pretty.
posted by rocket88 at 9:02 AM on July 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

Terrific images.
posted by MarshallPoe at 9:20 AM on July 9, 2008

Wonderful find. Thanks, CL.
posted by paddysat at 9:30 AM on July 9, 2008

Rice pics > Satellite pics.
posted by tadellin at 11:17 AM on July 9, 2008

Yeah, I saw them after. Just found this post from last year.
posted by CunningLinguist at 11:23 AM on July 9, 2008

File the satellite pics: Yet another great set of graphics to make my homebrew beer labels with a neat theme. Terkezi Pale Ale, here we come!
posted by spock at 11:26 AM on July 9, 2008

Gods and Monsters (Google Maps link)
posted by sidereal at 12:24 PM on July 9, 2008

dammit, the Bahamas Sands doesn't open as wallpaper...
posted by marvin at 11:36 PM on July 9, 2008