Have you seen this image before?

RJN · Post by **RJN** » Mon May 14, 2012 3:53 pm

Today's illustration on APOD depicting the amount of water on Earth has been circulating on the web with a relatively high profile over the past week or so. Have you seen it before? We would be grateful if you would indicate yes or no in the above poll. Although only an informal poll, we are curious to better understand the effect of previous recent exposure on the popularity of specific APODs. Comments are also welcome below. Thanks for any help you can be!

The image is again posted here for clarity:

: Click to view full size image

- RJN for APOD

Terry · Post by **Terry** » Tue May 15, 2012 4:41 am

Saw it the day before on Gizmodo Australia.
Replete with all the dumb comments that their comment fields attract.
Much better pic here though

SteveWalkey1 · Post by **SteveWalkey1** » Tue May 15, 2012 5:45 am

Hi, I've seen it before, but not this week. There's one about the atmosphere too, it's even scarier! We have to look after this place...

donlevone · Post by **donlevone** » Tue May 15, 2012 9:00 am

SteveWalkey1 wrote:Hi, I've seen it before, but not this week. There's one about the atmosphere too, it's even scarier! We have to look after this place...

Can someone post a link with this picture with atmosphere

I've never seen these pictures before

RedFishBlueFish · Post by **RedFishBlueFish** » Tue May 15, 2012 9:29 am

This, then, is a picture of God: Since that small blue marble is what creates life on this planet.

ozalba · Post by **ozalba** » Tue May 15, 2012 9:39 am

I've not seen this exact image, but here is a similar one (nicer too, IMHO, although the ocean floor is less well shown):

heng · Post by **heng** » Tue May 15, 2012 11:10 am

saw it on first on
http://science.memebase.com/

junpumanpan · Post by **junpumanpan** » Tue May 15, 2012 12:15 pm

SteveWalkey1 wrote:Hi, I've seen it before, but not this week. There's one about the atmosphere too, it's even scarier! We have to look after this place...

i hadn't seen it before , I love it , I'd also like to see the atmosphere one as well , please post a link .

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue May 15, 2012 12:51 pm

junpumanpan wrote:
SteveWalkey1 wrote:Hi, I've seen it before, but not this week. There's one about the atmosphere too, it's even scarier! We have to look after this place...

i hadn't seen it before , I love it , I'd also like to see the atmosphere one as well , please post a link .

I found a link after some googline: http://www.sciencephoto.com/images/imag ... =690550330

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue May 15, 2012 1:08 pm

Similar version seen last week for the first time in a presentation by Mark Schrader of the Ocean Watch organization.

Starbreak · Post by **Starbreak** » Tue May 15, 2012 1:37 pm

heng wrote:saw it on first on
http://science.memebase.com/

haha, this, I too saw it first on there around a week ago.

Hoagy27 · Post by **Hoagy27** » Tue May 15, 2012 1:47 pm

Saw it first on the Earth Science picture of the day facebook page

AstroChick · Post by **AstroChick** » Tue May 15, 2012 1:56 pm

First saw this last week on USGS website (linked from their facebook page): http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html USGS credits Jack Cook of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution same as APOD.

Sam · Post by **Sam** » Tue May 15, 2012 3:28 pm

I saw it first here at S.A.*!
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=28486

guest6523 · Post by **guest6523** » Tue May 15, 2012 5:23 pm

May 8 CNN Lightyears blog

pcully · Post by **pcully** » Tue May 15, 2012 6:37 pm

I saw it at Phil Plait's talk in Boulder, CO on May 12, 2012.

bellzerr · Post by **bellzerr** » Tue May 15, 2012 7:43 pm

This morning on the Weather Channel during their silly WUWA (Wake Up With Al) show.
By the way, I don't believe it. There doesn't appear to be enough matter there to even "paint" the oceans back in place.

junpumanpan · Post by **junpumanpan** » Tue May 15, 2012 9:29 pm

Guest wrote:
junpumanpan wrote:
SteveWalkey1 wrote:Hi, I've seen it before, but not this week. There's one about the atmosphere too, it's even scarier! We have to look after this place...

i hadn't seen it before , I love it , I'd also like to see the atmosphere one as well , please post a link .
I found a link after some googline: http://www.sciencephoto.com/images/imag ... =690550330

Dude , that is so cool , thank you .

rstevenson · Post by **rstevenson** » Tue May 15, 2012 11:40 pm

bellzerr wrote:... By the way, I don't believe it. There doesn't appear to be enough matter there to even "paint" the oceans back in place.

Luckily, science doesn't require belief. All you have to do is gather up some commonly available facts and perform the calculations yourself.

Rob

geertdev · Post by **geertdev** » Wed May 16, 2012 7:39 am

I saw it many months ago. The oceans (mass 1.430E21 kg) fill a ball of 698.901 km radius, adding water (clouds and vapour) in atmosphere makes it 698.022 km, and adding icecaps, groundwater, lakes, rivers, makes it 705.022 km radius. (Data from from "Patient Earth", John Harte and Robert H Socolow, 1971, Holt Rinehart and Winston Inc.
The dry atmosphere (mass 5.12E18 kg) would take up 981.433 km sphere if at atmospheric pressure.

mda · Post by **mda** » Wed May 16, 2012 1:09 pm

Same infographic, different picture. It was in a french magazine "Science & vie" and the meaning was the same.

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Wed May 16, 2012 11:15 pm

I find XKCD's Lakes and Oceans is good for understanding the depth of something like Mariana Trench because it shows both the standard depth graph as well as an accurate horizontal scale inset. It's also very interesting for a number of other reasons!

adamnieman · Post by **adamnieman** » Thu May 17, 2012 8:41 pm

I'm the author of a very similar image, which won a 'Visions of Science' award in 2003. I made three versions because having direct experience of the areas depicted (e.g. knowing what it's like to drive from Northern France to Southern Italy) helps with the sense of scale.

I also made a version which shows the volume of whole atmosphere at sea-level density:

There's 5,140 trillion tonnes of air in the atmosphere, but most of it is very close to the surface. At 5.6 km above the ground (about half the height of an airliner) half of the atmosphere is beneath you.

I call this type of image 'concrete visualisation', a term I have tried to explain here: http://adamnieman.posterous.com/what-is ... ualisation

Concrete visualisation can work well in astronomy. In this example I have tried to get a feel for the surface area of the Moon by mapping a familiar area onto it. You can see the relative sizes of the Earth and the Moon in the image on the right.

I'd be delighted if APOD wanted to feature one of my 'All the air' images, or the surface area of the Moon image. What do you say?

@adamnieman

jc1742 · Post by **jc1742** » Fri May 18, 2012 12:34 am

No, I've never seen it (though I've seen a few similar images that used shapes other than spheres to illustrate the idea.

editor_b · Post by **editor_b** » Mon May 21, 2012 2:27 pm

I have never seen this image before. It's fascinating, as are the others posted here. Thanks.

Starship Asterisk*