South America

This color image of the Earth was obtained by Galileo about 1.3 million miles from the planet. Galileo was making the first of two Earth flybys on its way to Jupiter. South America is near the center of the picture, and the white, sunlit continent of Antarctica is below. Picturesque weather fronts are visible in the South Atlantic, lower right. 

Africa

The crew of Apollo 17 took this photograph of Earth in December 1972 while the spacecraft was traveling between the Earth and the Moon. The orange-red deserts of Africa and Saudi Arabia stand in stark contrast to the deep blue of the oceans and the white of both clouds and snow-covered Antarctica. 


Horn of Africa, Somalia

The orange and tan colors of this high-oblique photograph of the Horn of Africa indicate an arid-to-semiarid landscape in the northern half of the east African country of Somalia. Except in the darker areas where thicker vegetation can be found, most of the vegetation in this part of Somalia is shrub brush and grasslands. The general climate of this region features hot temperatures and scarce, irregular rainfall. T

Antarctica

This image of Antarctica was taken by Galileo several hours after it flew close to the Earth on December 8, 1990. This is the first picture of the whole Antarctic continent taken nearly at once from space. Galileo was about 200,000 kilometers (125,000 miles) from Earth when the pictures were taken.

The icy continent is surrounded by the dark blue of three oceans: the Pacific to the left, the Indian to the bottom, and a piece of the Atlantic to the upper right. Nearly the entire continent was sunlit at this time of year, just two weeks before southern summer solstice. The arc of dark spots extending from near the South Pole (close to the center) toward the lower left is the Trans antarctic Mountain Range. To the left of the mountains is the vast Ross Ice Shelf and the shelf's sharp border with the dark waters of the Ross Sea. The thin blue line along the Earth's limb marks our planet's atmosphere. 

Clementine Mission
This false-colored image was acquired during the Clementine mission. It shows airglow of the upper atmosphere as a thin blue line. The bright spot toward the bottom is an urban area. 

Cosmos...