Earth’s Selfie

The 3.2 gigapixel Global Selfie mosaic, hosted by GigaPan, was made with 36,422 individual images that were posted to social media sites on or around Earth Day, April 22, 2014. When viewing on GigaPan’s website (gigapan.com/gigapans/155294), clicking on the “Snapshots” icon in the lower-left corner will display a row of highlighted images. Image provided by NASA.

On Earth Day this year, NASA asked people all around the world a simple question – “Where are you on Earth Right Now?”

NASA asked people to answer the question on social media with a selfie. The goal was to use each selfie as a pixel in the creation of a “Global Selfie” – a mosaic image that would look like Earth appeared from space on Earth Day.

NASA released the finished product. The image was built using 36,422 individual photos that were posted on social media and tagged #globalselfie on or around April 22, 2014. People on every continent – 113 countries and regions in all – posted selfies. From Antarctica to Yemen, Greenland to Guatemala, Micronesia to the Maldives, Pakistan, Poland, Peru – and on. The image was assembled after weeks of curating more than 50,000 #globalselfie submissions – not all were accessible or usable – from Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and Flickr.

The result is a zoomable 3.2-gigapixel image that people can scan and explore to take a closer look at the variety of pictures. The mosaic is hosted on the Web by GigaPan (gigapan.com/gigapans/155294).

The year 2014 is a significant one for NASA Earth science. For the first time in more than a decade, five missions designed to gather critical data about our home planet are launching to space in a single year. Next up is the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), launching from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base on July 1.