Earthlings

Image credit: NASA's Earth Observatory/NOAA/DOD

SPARKLE PLENTY:  We've all seen photos of Earth at night, taken by satellites. But today NASA released the latest, greatest versions of said photos were released. Stunning! Seriously, doesn't it look like fine art?

The photo is a composite of data from the Suomi National Polar orbiting Partnership satellite. The images were taken over nine days in April of this year, and 13 days in October. According to the NASA press release, it took 312 orbits to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth's land surface. The data from these passes were mapped over existing "Blue Marble" imagery of our planet to give this amazing new view.

Here's the view in motion ...

SPACE SPIDER: Sad news to report. Nefertiti, a spider that traveled 42 million miles (!) aboard the International Space Station, has died.

After her long and storied service, the astro-spider was sent to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.  There, she promptly died. :/  Guess once she had a taste of space, all this Earthbound stuff was beneath her, so to speak. ;)

The kids and I followed the spiders in space program. It was an experiment designed to determine if the spider could catch its meals in a micro gravity environment. (It could!)

MAPMAKERS: This afternoon in science class, the kids used a transparency film to trace the model of the school grounds they made last week.

Once they had their transparency, they each used graph paper to draw maps with keys.

While the kids were working on coloring their maps, I heard CJ tell a frustrated tablemate, "Don't worry, it doesn't have to be like Michelangelo."

LOL.