The Blue Marble, 2012

There it is folks, our home in space.  The Blue Marble. Mother Earth. Whatever you want to call it, it’s home to all the life we actually KNOW about in the cosmos.

This image was taken using an instrument called VIIRS (short for Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer, sensitive to both visible and infrared wavelengths of light) on NASA’s Earth-observing satellite named Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. Suomi is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth — everything from climate to surface variations over time. This is the kind of work that helps us understand the planet we inhabit, and what we’re doing to it. Read more about this image (and get higher resolution versions) at NASA Goddard’s Flickr Site.

Enjoy!