***image1***Spying for science.
VISIBLE EARTH
Ever wonder what NASA does with all those satellites it sends up to space? Well, many of the pictures are available online, which means we can all start our own Personal Global Warming Watch 2006. With collections ranging from agricultural to oceanographic images to sun-earth interactions, the large collection, on an extremely easy-to-navigate site, provides tons of interesting photos. Some are extremely scientific and may not appeal to the untrained eye, but the majority are as stunning as they are educational.
NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION
Images from NOAA's Operational Significant Event Imagery team show up regularly on the evening news. Last year's image of the day from Aug. 29 offered a spectacular picture of Hurricane Katrina hours before it devastated the Gulf Coast. The majority of images focus on storms, be they dust or tropical, but fires are also included. The categories are clear but directories of images are not named for the casual Internet surfer. Clicking on any given link reaches into a seeming grab bag of pictures, but no matter what comes up on the screen, it's pretty amazing to see what happens on our planet from such a distant perspective.
HUBBLE TELESCOPE
The Hubble Telescope doesn't make headlines the way it did back in the early '90s. When first launched, amateur stargazers were entranced by the images beamed back to earth. Some of those photographs have become iconic, while others have only been viewed by the few who have sought them out. More than 900 images are currently in the site's gallery, including some great shots of former planet Pluto. The site displays a thumbnail of images that can then be blown up to full-screen proportions in most cases. Delving deep into the site also offers an interesting look at how the colors of Hubble's images come to be, based on tricky science and explained in easy terms and pictures.
