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Why there is no photos of earth from space? 🤔 (lemmynsfw.com)

submitted 3 months ago by batman654987@lemmynsfw.com to c/explainlikeimfive@lemmy.world

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A couple of years ago i heard somwhere that there is no single photo of earth that is real. And i thought to myself wait i can check that emidietly. So i went on google and was shocked that if you lookup closer realy every single one looks obviusly fake! 😮

Today when i look at photos on the internet they still all look obviusly fake to me. There is not even a discusion about it.

So why do you think that is?

Is it that earth looks different than they are telling us or is it that there are no photos because nobody has ever been to space. Or meaby they do it on purpose for some reason? I have one theory in mind, but would like to hear what you think..

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[-] Metostopholes@midwest.social 34 points 3 months ago

I will assume for now you are posting in good faith.

Most photos depicting the entire Earth as a blue marble are "fake", in that they are stitched together from many photos taken separately. There are some that are completely "real" with no such edits, like the famous "Earthrise" photo taken in 1968 by astronaut Bill Anders from the Apollo 8 craft while above the Moon:

There are lots more "real" images from Earth orbit where the entire globe can't fit in frame. Hell, here's an hour long 4K video of footage from the ISS:

https://plus.nasa.gov/video/earth-from-space-in-4k/

Is there something about these that seems fake to you?

[-] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 months ago

Fun fact: Apollo 8 had a strict schedule of when and of what they were supposed to take pictures. This picture broke that schedule, but everyone in the craft agreed that this was something that needed documentation.

And I doubt anyone ever berated them for "wasting film"

[-] Account5600@lemmy.world 27 points 3 months ago

Take your meds

[-] Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 3 months ago

What looks fake about them?

[-] ninjaturtle@lemmy.today 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Maybe you are talking about the color overlay that they add to images? This explains some of the reason. https://www.lroc.asu.edu/images/192

Edit: just realized this was explain like I'm 5 so I can add a little excerpt.

Not sure exactly what you mean by fake. My biggest guess will be the coloring of the images. Why are space photos always so vivid? This is because the images are color overlayed from a lot of images that are actually taken in single color themselves. Be it black or white, black and blue, etc. Once the individual images are received, they then piece them together go try and mimic the visual humans will see.

Photos are shot in single color because they are easier to process and also much smaller in size. This makes it better for transmitting.

[-] ninjaturtle@lemmy.today 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

This explains coloring in space.

https://socratic.org/questions/why-are-space-images-typically-black-and-white

Note: there are probably images from the ISS that are taken from normal cameras

[-] Death_Equity@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

A lot of them are also composites because you can't photograph more than 7%(?) of the Earth's surface from the ISS.

So the photos of half the Earth that is facing the camera may be made up of a bunch of photos and then they have to stich them together and correct for clouds.

Prior to 2015, there was only one photo of the entire sunlit face of the Earth and that was taken in 1972 by Apollo 17. The other 3 photos we have ever taken of the Earth have an unlit portion. We now have DSCOVR, which regularly takes photos every day.