Space Oddities

[Buster's Uncle]

Space Oddities
 An Astronaut's Pictures From Space
Wall Street Journal
By Alexandra Wolfe  Oct. 2, 2014 4:02 p.m. ET



Slavne, Ukraine NASA



What is it really like to be in outer space? After fielding this question numerous times, astronaut Chris Hadfield decided to document his time on the international space station. The results can be found in his new book, "You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes" (Little, Brown and Co., $26), which features about 150 of the approximately 45,000 photographs that he took mostly during his last trip, a five-month stay ending in May 2013. Mr. Hadfield, now retired, estimates that he orbited Earth 2,593 times during his three trips to space. He had to take his shots quickly: The station might cross the U.S. in just 10 minutes. His photos capture many unusual views of our planet, from the spidery patterns formed by sand dunes in the Gobi Desert to the circuit-like design of oil and gas sites in Carlsbad, N.M. "It's such a rare vantage point," he says. "I got to know the world well."



Astronauts use this eroded dome in Mauritania as a bulls-eye to orient them.



These green dots are crop circles in South Africa.  NASA



Mr. Hadfield took this photograph in Slavne, Ukraine, because he thought it looked like a bird pecking at a seed. NASA



These lagoons and marshes in the western Sivash show an area often used for industrial salt extraction. NASA



These patterns are farms in Kashary, and areas of western Russia. NASA



The swirling pattern is from eroded salt domes and mud flats that scientists think shifted when tectonic plates moved. NASA



This saline globule covers about 160 square miles in Western Australia's Gibson Desert. NASA


http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-view-from-the-top-earth-from-space-1412280159?ru=yahoo?mod=yahoo_itp

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