Technicolour dream planet: Earth as you've never seen it

Add to My Stories They look like beautiful abstract splashes of colour not to dissimilar to work by Van Gogh but these vivid pictures are in fact planet Earth - as art.The US Geological Survey National Centre has used different combinations of satellite images from Landsat 7 and Terra Satellites to create the show-stopping pictures capturing of the intricacy of the earth's natural beauty.
Scientists then used a different colour for each radiation wavelength, most of which are invisible to the naked eye, allowing them to look at the Earth's surface in different colours to its natural colours.

The so-called Richat Structure is a geological formation in the Maur Adrar Desert in Mauritania. Although it resembles an impact crater, it formed when a volcanic dome hardened and gradually eroded, exposing the onion-like layers of rock

These cloud formations were seen over the western Aleutian Islands. Their colour variations are probably due to differences in temperature and in the size of water droplets that make up the clouds

Complex patterns can be seen in the shallow waters along Guinea-Bissau's coastline in West Africa where silt carried by the Geba and other rivers washes out into the Atlantic OceanThe result is a collection of 40 images of deserts, deltas, glaciers, cloud formations, mountains, valleys and coastlines where light is the medium and not paint.The scientists were so impressed with the collection they are now showcasing them on an online gallery the Earth as Art 3 collection.

More...

• The ghost trees of Pakistan: Spider webs cocoon branches in creepy after-effect of floods

The Landsat satellites have collected information abo! ut Earth from space since 1972.
Among the images is the so-called Richat Structure, a geological formation in the Maur Adrar Desert in Mauritania.

Water spills out of the Gulf of Mexico where their suspended sediment is deposited to form the Mississippi River Delta

Ephemeral Lake Carnegie, in Western Australia, fills with water only during periods of significant rainfall. In dry years, it is reduced to a muddy marsh

Inland from the tourist mecca of Cancun in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula is a sparsely populated tropical scrub forest that shelters the ruins of ancient Mayan cities

It formed when a volcanic dome hardened and gradually eroded, exposing the onion-like layers of rock.Matt Larsen, the USGS's associate director for Climate and Land Use Change, said: 'While studying satellite imagery taken nearly 450 miles above the Earths surface, USGS researchers recognized that some remarkable images went beyond scientific value and inspired their imagination.'The collected images are authentic and original in the truest sense. These magnificently engaging portraits of Earth encourage us all to learn more about our complex world.'

A satellite image of the sands and seaweed in the Bahamas. Tides and ocean currents sculpted the sand and seaweed beds into these multicoloured, fluted patterns

The Ganges River forms an extensive delta where it empties into the Bay of Bengal

The Earth as Art 3 exhibit is the third in the series of award-winning USGS and N! ASA imag es.

Earth as Art 1 and 2 have been shown in the Library of Congress, in the halls of Capitol Hill, and museums and art centres around the US.