Seeing the Earth Almost Live

arobic writes "European Space Agency (ESA) is putting recent pictures of the Earth (taken 2 hours before) online using Envisat. To avoid filling up their disks too quickly, only the bmp of the last 30 days are available but jpg are kept. Also, only region receiving light can be seen, which explains why no recent pictures of Thailand are available."

Is it possible to zoom enough to...

[Rastignac]

...see naked people ?
(If not, this thing is not useful at all).

What's this about Thailand?

[InterruptDescriptorT]

There's no light in Thailand? Have they fallen afoul of the sun or something?

'No light for you! Come back one summer solstice!'

Thailand

[gEvil (beta)]

Also, only region receiving light can be seen, which explains why no recent pictures of Thailand are available.

Did I miss something? Did some devious Thai overlord deploy a sun-blocking device recently?

Figures

[Opportunist]

As usual, we keep aspiring countries in the dark to have access to cheap labour.

Not only Thailand

[loconet]

Not available for Thailand and parts of Soviet Russia, where as we all know, light receives them.

Re:Thailand?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"I don't get the joke on Thailand."

I read somewhere that the Earth exists in a state commonly referred to as 'round', so sometimes there are parts of the planet that light while others are dark. It's an interesting theory but I cannot claim to be an expert on the topic because I haven't looked out the window to observe this myself.

I can't believe it

[steveo777]

We've slashdotted the whole earth!

"To avoid filling up their disks too quickly"

[bill_mcgonigle]

Suggestion: call Google.

Re:Are we still alive?

[interstellar_donkey]

No, it means we were almost dead two hours ago.

WMD found

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I just spotted WMD in Iraq and North Korea. Quickly, someone get me through to Bush.

OMG...I almost missed that! PONIESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSs

Slashdot story with a site hosting BMP's

[dobedobedew]

What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Triana Satalite

[Dr. Eggman]

Wait, you mean to tell me that Al Gore invented the Triana Satalite? This is better than the internet!

To the Press Department!

I like the older pictures

[yagu]

I kind of like the older Google satellite pictures better. I got laid off a couple of years ago, but the satellite picture of my bus stop still shows my car parked there so I can still feel like I have a job.

Anyone know the location of their webserver?

[seriesrover]

In about half an hour you'll be able to see a flume of smoke rising from the building - it'll be the first time we can physically see a slashdotting in action.

The suspense is killing me.

Be like Billy...

[MS-06FZ]

"almost live."

Is that like "almost funny"

Oddly enough, yes [imdb.com].

Though I do have fond memories of Billy Quan, The Lame List (or, "What's Weak This Week"), and the super-hero SPEED-WALKER! Plus you can see Bill Nye in his pre-Science-Guy days.

Re:Live?

[Clever7Devil]

Two words:

Wardrobe Malfunction.

Re:Thailand?

[drig]

Maybe that's why one night in Bangkok can make a hard man humble?

Re:Quality

[necro2607]

"My whole house could disappear as a JPEG compression artifact."

Holy crap, have you ever seen that 3d-animated show Reboot? I just got this really vivid image of a neighbourhood being destroyed as though it was whipped up in some kind of digital tornado, and sucked up into whatever unknown void... "AAhhhhh shit THEY USED JPEG!!!!!!! Run for your lives!!"

This is FANTASTIC!!!

[GoatMonkey2112]

Now I'll be able to see pictures of the earth and it will be almost like I'm there!

Quote

[jagdish]

What are all these other places I see apart from America?

Flat-earth heretic!

[Anonymous Coward]

I read somewhere that the Earth exists in a state commonly referred to as 'round'

Un, no. Its 'state' is more or less 'spherical'.

Re:Thailand?

[cciRRus]

The original word was Scandinavia, basically because it is now always (or almost) dark there and Envisat cannot take pictures, that was all.

Oh, thanks for shedding light on this issue.