Mother Earth - Blog Posts

IDEA!

I think it would be so cool if someone made an animation based off of the Disney song "Colors of the Wind" (if anyone ever feels the need to make this come to life by all means PLEASE 🙏)

Like there is a person that the scene is following and they're singing the song but in like modern times showing off like cities and people just interacting and LIVING

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🎶"You think I'm an ignorant savage" 🎶

The speaker (for the sake of this I'm going to call them "C" for citizens or something or like the people) is singing towards the camera or another idea is is that there is another person (I'm going to call this figure G) that is kind of just like a blank slate or like a shadow figure so like there's no identifiable features just that it's a being that is there and present and they are the one being addressed

-maybe there's a foggy blurry distant perception of an angry mob behind C that's kind of like a mirage

🎶"And you've been so many places"🎶

Pan rich people stuff, like boats and planes and maybe high class parties with suits and dresses and champagne or whatnot

🎶"I guess it must be so"🎶

🎶"But still, I cannot see"🎶

Maybe there's a close up of C and in their eyes you can see different scenes of people crying over bills in their hand well at the hospital, and then maybe it pans to some rich higher up connected to the hospital and they're laughing having fun over fancy dinner in a suit at some party

🎶"If the savage one is me"🎶

could be kind of cool if the poor side was reflected in one eye and the rich was reflected in the other at the same time so you could see the contrast

🎶"How can there be so much that you don't know?"🎶

Maybe it pans two other unfortunate scenes filtering in C's eyes that show the wide contrast between the rich and the poor

🎶"You don't know"🎶

...No longer a close-up of C...

🎶"You think you own whatever land you land on"🎶

C is singing at them and pokes G's chest and then gestures around them with their arms open

🎶"The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim"🎶

maybe pan to scenes that go on in the background like a one of those old photo tapes that are like long strips of different photos of places being conquered/ taken over/ claimed, or natural resources being picked dry like a scene of trees being cut down, or they're digging up dirt for oil or something

🎶"But I know every rock and tree and creature"🎶

I think would be cool if the scene blurs and it looks like it's spinning and then suddenly it looks like C and G a walking down a path and C is greeting people and saying hi or like giving brief hugs before they keep walking down the path

🎶"Has a life, has a spirit, has a name"🎶

C looks back at G and gestures one arm out then there's like scenes of the people he just greeted or said hi to just living life, interacting with other people, smiling, talking doing things maybe playing with kids or walking a dog or going in a coffee shop or something

🎶"You think the only people who are people"🎶

And then maybe it shows a whole bunch of different people from all over the world and different cultures with all different features and looks and languages from all kinds of different backgrounds just showing them having small interactions and day to day life (including different genders and sexualities)

🎶"Are the people who look and think like you"🎶

Maybe pan to rich people doing rich people things?

🎶"But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger"🎶

It continues to pan between the different scenes, maybe some showing different kinds of cultural celebrations

🎶"You'll learn things you never knew, you never knew"🎶

Meanwhile all these scenes are going by, maybe it looks like they're invisible but in the room where all these different people just watching it happen. But it also shows other scenes like the poor and the hungry and the homeless and all the others that society tends to forget about, that they are people too, and that they're hurting, maybe it shows scenes like a mother going hungry just so she can give her kids the meager scraps of food, for a father working himself to the bone to try to provide, or younger person having to put up with other people tormenting them at work because they need the job to be able to put food on the table and pay their rent

🎶"Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon?"🎶

Maybe pan to a street artist playing guitar and singing something and has a hat out for cash, maybe pans too something to show money problems, maybe an eviction notice

🎶"Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned?"🎶

Maybe a scene of a clearly overworked and exhausted father that puts a smile on for his kid but then turns around and looks at his empty wallet and loses his smile making sure his kids can't see

Then it pans to other similar scenes where people are struggling and hurting while C keeps singing

🎶"Can you sing with all the voices of the mountain?"🎶

🎶"Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?"🎶

🎶"Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?"🎶

🎶"Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest"🎶

Maybe show something where the scene is weaving down streets and corners and it comes upon a a family who is struggling but is just happy to have each other

🎶"Come taste the sun sweet berries of the Earth"🎶

Maybe a scene of poor kids running through the forest barefoot or something and stumbling upon a berry bush and they just present great joy as they start stuffing handfuls in their folded shirts

🎶"Come roll in all the riches all around you"🎶

Maybe the camera starts pointing towards the sky from in the forest so you can see beautiful gigantic trees reaching towards the heavens and maybe birds play together as they fly by, and the camera is spinning in a circle? And/or C has their face towards the sky and their arms wide open as they spin in circles in a small clearing

🎶"And for once, never wonder what they're worth"🎶

Maybe one of the playful birds comes down and perches on C's arm/hand

.... Scene change, maybe in a city again

🎶"The rainstorm and the river are my brothers"🎶

Pan to different people, maybe people of different cultures and genders

🎶"The heron and the otter are my friends"🎶

🎶"And we are all connected to each other"🎶

Maybe a scene where it shows that things are all connected to each other like sunlight to plants and deer to wolves and bodies to mushrooms and stuff like that?

🎶"In a circle, in a hoop that never ends"🎶

🎶"How high does the sycamore grow?"🎶

Maybe show a massive gigantic tree that C stands at the base of and opens its arms wide upwards towards its leaves

🎶"If you cut it down, then you'll never know"🎶

🎶"And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon"🎶

Maybe show a street view of the place where the street performer used to sing/play and just show a dirty ruined trampled on hat that's just abandoned on the sidewalk

🎶"For whether we are white or copper skinned"🎶

C is facing towards the camera and has arms wide, on one side it shows the average in poor people in their plane worn clothes and the other it shows rich people with fancy suits or expensive stuff or whatever

🎶"We need to sing with all the voices of the mountain"🎶

Maybe show C with the mob behind them like the beginning but this time they're happy and holding hands and stuff

🎶"We need to paint with all the colors of the wind"🎶

🎶"You can own the Earth and still"🎶

Maybe show something where people are farming or gathering but still tending to the Earth

🎶"All you'll own is Earth until"🎶

Show people shopping down trees and digging for oil

🎶"You can paint with all the colors of the wind"🎶

Have C bring their arms in close to their chest and cover their heart

*Echoes of the End*

The earth once sang in hues of green,

Now silenced by the scars unseen.

The forests fall, the deserts grow,

As endless winds of sorrow blow.

The air is thick with silent cries,

While fading suns paint fractured skies.

The oceans choke on plastic breath,

And creatures flee from certain death.

Mountains crumble, rivers dry,

As we stand still and wonder why.

A fleeting moment, lost in time,

The rhythm of the world’s last rhyme.

We’ve sown the seeds, now bear the cost,

As futures fade and dreams are lost.

A dying world, a dying call,

Can we still rise before we fall?

heard the new song this morning and couldn't wait to draw it

The Way I'm Sure Mice Are Meant To Die

I'm not always sure what God's I worship

I'm not always sure of my own morals

I'm not always sure of my theories of the afterlife

But something I am sure of and always have been is my belief in mother earth

And my hatred of cruel glue traps

I know the mice are not meant to be here

If I were fast enough to catch them to release I would

But I know I am not

So if it must come to a trap I will use something that is fast

Because between a quick bullet to the brain execution or a long tortureous death of struggle and starvation

I think all of us would choose the first choice

Mind you this creature is dying for such a petty crime

Just trying to survive somewhere they don't even know they shouldn't be

When it's over I'll bury him

The mouse in my room that will soon be in a trap that I've set

And I'll feel bad for murdering something more innocent than my own kind

But I will feel better knowing he did not suffer

And that I return him to the earth from which he came

Become throwing a creature of earth

of flesh and bone once granted life

Into layers of plastic with the pollution bound for a graveyard of garbage

It feels so wrong

Even as a child I knew that

It goes against all nature and worse starves earth of her meal

It's take with no true give

I'll likely repeat this to deaf ears of family

When they find me digging a hole for a pest

If I had a choice I'd be buried with no coffin

But I know I don't

So all I can do is hope for the cheapest one

Made of the softest wood

Something easy to rot

I'd rather not keep mother earth waiting long for her meal

For now I'll give her back the small mouse that wandered away from her to my own den

And hope she sees his death not as unatural cruelty but as predator sharing prey

The way I'm sure mice are meant to die

21 Years of Amazing Earth Imagery

On April 29, 1999, NASA Earth Observatory started delivering science stories and imagery to the public through the Internet. Today, we turn 21! So much has changed in the past two decades... 

One of the most notable changes is the way we view our home planet. Check out some of the beautiful imagery of our planet over the past 21 years.

2000: Pine Island Glacier

Most people will never see Pine Island Glacier in person. Located near the base of the Antarctic Peninsula—the “thumb” of the continent—the glacier lies more than 2,600 kilometers (1,600 miles) from the tip of South America. That’s shorter than a cross-country flight from New York to Los Angeles, but there are no runways on the glacier and no infrastructure. Only a handful of scientists have ever set foot on its ice.

This animation shows a wide view of Pine Island Glacier and the long-term retreat of its ice front. Images were acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on our Terra satellite from 2000 to 2019. Notice that there are times when the front appears to stay in the same place or even advance, though the overall trend is toward retreat. Read more.

2002: The Blue Marble

In February 2002, Earth Observatory published this “blue marble” image based on the most detailed collection of true-color imagery of the entire Earth at that time. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer (.386 square mile) of our planet. Most of the information contained in this image came from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS), illustrating the instrument's outstanding capacity to act as an integrated tool for observing a variety of terrestrial, oceanic and atmospheric features of the Earth. Read more.

2009: Tsauchab River Bed

The Tsauchab River is a famous landmark for the people of Namibia and tourists. Yet few people have ever seen the river flowing with water. In December 2009, an astronaut on the International Space Station caught this glimpse of the Tsauchab River bed jutting into the sea of red dunes. It ends in a series of light-colored, silty mud holes on the dry lake floor.

Like several other rivers around the Namib Desert, the Tsauchab brings sediment down from the hinterland toward the coastal lowland. This sediment is then blown from the river beds, and over tens of millions of years it has accumulated as the red dunes of the Namib Sand Sea. Read more. 

2012: Manning Island and Foxe Basin, Canada

Although it may look like a microscope’s view of a thin slice of mineral-speckled rock, this image was actually acquired in space by the Earth Observing-1 satellite in July 2012. It shows a small set of islands and a rich mixture of ice in Foxe Basin, the shallow northern reaches of Hudson Bay.

The small and diverse sizes of the ice floes indicate that they were melting. The darkest colors in the image are open water. Snow-free ice appears gray, while snow-covered ice appears white. The small, dark features on many of the floes are likely melt ponds. Read more.

2013: A Lava Lamp Look at the Atlantic

Stretching from tropical Florida to the doorstep of Europe, this river of water carries a lot of heat, salt, and history. The Gulf Stream is an important part of the global ocean conveyor belt that moves water and heat across the North Atlantic from the equator toward the poles. It is one of the strongest currents on Earth, and one of the most studied.

This image shows a small portion of the Gulf Stream as it appears in infrared imagery. Data for this image was acquired on April 9, 2013, by the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) on the Landsat 8 satellite. TIRS observes in wavelengths of 10.9 micrometers and 12.0 micrometers. The image above is centered at 33.06° North latitude, 73.86° West longitude, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) east of Charleston, South Carolina. Read more.

2016: Curious Ensemble of Wonderful Features

When John Wesley Powell explored the Colorado River in 1869, he made the first thorough survey of one of the last blank spots on the map. The expedition began in May at Green River, Wyoming, and ended three months later at the confluence of the Colorado and Virgin Rivers in present-day Nevada.

About two months into their journey, the nine men of the expedition found themselves in Glen Canyon. As the men traveled along the serpentine river channel, they encountered what Powell later described in Canyons of Colorado as a “curious ensemble of wonderful features.”

From above, the view of Glen Canyon is equally arresting. In 2016, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station took several photographs that were combined to make a long mosaic. The water has an unnatural shade of blue because of sunglint, an optical phenomenon that occurs when sunlight reflects off the surface of water at the same angle that a camera views it. Click here to see the long mosaic.

2019: Lena Delta Shakes Off Water

For most of the year, the Lena River Delta—a vast wetland fanning out from northeast Siberia into the Arctic Ocean—is either frozen over and barren or thawed out and lush. Only briefly will you see it like this.

After seven months encased in snow and ice, the delta emerges for the short Arctic summer. The transition happens fast. The animation above, composed of images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on our Aqua satellite, shows the transformation from June 3-10, 2019. Read more.

2020: Making Waves in the Andaman Sea

When tides, currents and gravity move water masses over seafloor features, they can create wave actions within the ocean. Oceanographers began studying these internal waves from ships in the 1960s, and the modern era of satellites has made it possible to see them on a grand scale. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured these images of the Andaman Sea on November 29, 2019. The reflection of the Sun on the ocean—sunglint—helps make the internal waves visible.

Internal waves form because the ocean is layered. Deep water tends to be colder, denser and saltier, while shallower water is often warmer, lighter and fresher. The differences in density and salinity cause layers of the ocean to behave like different fluids. When tides, currents, gravity and Earth’s rotation move these different water masses over seafloor formations (such as ridges or canyons), they create waves within the sea. Read more.

These images were taken from NASA Earth Observatory! 

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