Science Netlinks: Resource

Send us feedback

Print Page

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov

Target Audience
Grades - 3-5 6-8 9-12

Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth is just exactly what the title implies. There are many thousands of cataloged images from all or most "manned" space missions (please excuse the sexist NASA jargon). These are hand-held camera photos generally shot through a window. Through indices, coordinates, or just pointing at a large-scale photo map, one can get a sub map and then a list of hundreds of images. While by regular photographers' standards the cameras are excellent, most of the resulting images are shot from the typical shuttle earth orbits and seem to be inferior to those taken from imaging satellites. So if one wants to find his/her school or street, there are better images available from U-2 flights to Landsat and beyond. There are famous sites (e.g., the Giza pyramids) where inserted enlargements help find the points of interest. In some cases there are accompanying comments. Pictures of Diamond Head Hawaii were the most popular at time of review.

Other than researching very specific questions, this site seems most valuable as a fun lesson tool, permitting one to explore the vast surface of the earth via this unique database. Finding the science underlying this exploration might be a much more difficult task.

Reviewer Name:	Richard D. Johnson
Reviewer Affiliation:	Science Books & Film reviewer
Site Title:	The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth
Site Owner/Developer:	Johnson Space Center NASA
Date of Review:	12/30/2003
Technical Environment used for testing:	Memory: 16+ MB Browser: Mozilla Internet Connection: other