At a time when humans have access to almost unnaturally clear images of space, from high-resolution planetary portraits to giant deep-space mosaics, european space agency‘s new way of looking at the Earth really fascinates me. It’s blurry, the colors are a bit off, the planet isn’t centered and half of it is in shadow. To be honest, it looks like someone took this photo with a flip phone in the early 2000s.
Part of the appeal, of course, is the fact that, according to ESA, this image was taken with a camera the size of the edge of a coin aboard a satellite also made of three very small boxes. be. The satellite is called TRISAT-R, and as Iztok Kramberger, the mission’s project manager, said in announcing the images, “At less than 2 cubic millimeters in size, this tiny camera is capable of transporting approximately 1 trillion cubic kilometers. We took pictures of this object, our beautiful planet.” earth — from thousands of miles away. ”
But beyond that, on a personal level, I think staring at this image makes our Earth somehow feel more…real? I feel like it reminds me that I exist above macrocosm ― A tangible sphere within the tangible structure of the universe ―time You can take photos. This frame highlights how our species reached the point where a camera smaller than a fingernail can fly 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles) and capture footage of our entire world. Not only is this true, but it also makes it clear that: Facts, photos. in contrast, james webb space telescopeThe complexity of the infrared light increases the distance between us and the galaxies it images.sharpness of Apollo 17‘s “Blue Marble” portrait of Earth is great, but it can make the scene feel a bit unrealistic.
My own camera roll has hundreds of random blurry photos in between photos that are suitable for Instagram posts. If he could somehow go into space and take a bunch of photos of Earth with his iPhone, one of his photos would probably look something like this:
Related: These are the most detailed images of the moon ever taken on Earth
If you’re wondering why TRISAT-R took this image in the first place; satelliteThe mission, Slovenia’s second such mission, will blast off into medium-Earth orbit in 2022 with a radiation detection payload and several imaging instruments. Basically, the purpose of TRISAT-R is to help scientists study what’s happening in parts of the Earth. earth’s atmosphere called van allen radiation belt.
The Van Allen radiation belts are belts in the Earth’s outer shell that contain many charged particles. NASA compares them Go to “Giant Donut”. The outer belt holds particles such as: SunThe inner belt, on the other hand, tends to produce so-called “particles”. cosmic rayszoom through space almost speed of light. According to ESA, TRISAT-R’s orbit will not only pass through the inner belt, but also through the core of the ionosphere, the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space. There are also many charged particles around it.
And scientists have equipped TRISAT-R with, yes, a camera, in addition to a radiation detection payload to study these supercharged regions on Earth. In addition to the satellite, the TRISAT-R team sent an ultra-compact camera made of a transparent borosilicate glass lens (a highly durable glass) that is attached directly to a 320×320 pixel image sensor, the statement said. . So we end up with a shockingly wrong perspective.
“These highly miniaturized cameras are not intended to capture ground images, so the resulting images of Earth are of very low resolution,” Cranberger said. Furthermore, researchers believe that the satellite employs a rather weak “magnetorque” earth’s magnetic field Accurate pointing is difficult to achieve because posture control is difficult.
Kramberger explains that the team’s main interest in the images was to capture examples of the so-called “black sun effect.” This effect essentially occurs when pixels in an image are oversaturated, causing very bright areas to appear dark.
“We were successful in these investigations, and we were fortunate to be able to obtain images like this.”
I’m really lucky.