Letter B. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 acquired this image of the Arkansas River and the Holla Bend Wildlife Refuge. In the winter, it is common for the refuge to host 100,000 ducks and geese at once. (NASA) NASA
The ABCs of NASA
With satellite images and photos taken by astronauts, NASA has released its own stunning version of the ABCs
It’s not rocket science—but then again, it sort of is. Adam Volland, a technical writer at NASA—you know, the people who put Americans into space—was peering at satellite images over a wildfire in Canada when he noticed it: A little letter V. The next logical step? Finding the other 25 letters of the alphabet from images of the Earth, of course. The photos Volland curated cover a range of places across the Earth, from Kyrgyzstan to the United States, and feature everything from clouds to phytoplankton blooms.
Related:From the moon to Mars, read Maclean’s Space Issue, guest-edited by Chris Hadfield
Related Posts
History
How an RCAF airman’s watch solved a 50-year mystery
The discovery of F.O. William Joseph Kyle’s watch led Veterans Affairs Canada—and his family—to where his plane went down during the Second World War
Environment
A cave-diving photographer on ’swimming though the veins of the Earth’
Underwater cave photographer Jill Heinerth boldly swims where no one has swum before
Environment
John Streicker on rapid snowmelt and why he got into it up to his neck
Streicker, climate scientist and the Yukon’s minister of energy, mines and resources, went neck-deep into freezing waters to show rising water levels.
Photo
Bugs are people, too
Common insects get the close-up treatment, revealing more depth than may be expected
Get the Best of Maclean’s straight to your inbox.
Sign up for news, commentary and analysis. Join 60,000+ Canadian readers.