Selfies from Around the World Combine to Make a Portrait of Earth

On Earth Day, April 22, NASA invited people around the world to share their “selfies” on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Instagram, showing where on Earth they are and marking them with the hashtag #GlobalSelfie. Well, here we are a month later and the results have just been released… proof of what a beautiful world we all make up!

The image above was built using 36,422 fan-submitted self-portraits from 113 countries, and is based upon images of Earth acquired on April 22 by NASA/NOAA’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite instrument aboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite. (See the original NPP images here.)

How cool is that? A picture of Earth, as seen from space, recomposed of pictures of people on Earth taken the very same day!

Did you send in a #GlobalSelfie? I’m in there somewhere too, but I haven’t located myself (yet). They’re organized by hue and tone, not location, so I could be representing a spot in the middle of the Peruvian jungle instead of along the Providence River.

View the full zoomable 3.2-gigapixel image on GigaPan here.

The GlobalSelfie campaign was more than just a PR gimmick. 2014 is a big year for NASA Earth observation, with five missions launched to monitor our planet’s wind, oceans, soil, and atmosphere. GlobalSelfie was used to kick off the Earth Right Now campaign, helping to raise awareness about these missions and the data they’ll gather to ultimately benefit people around the world.

Source: NASA/GSFC