Satellite World Map

Designers Note: To make this image I started off with three different images. All of the first three, I downloaded from NASA's Visible Earth project. This is the first image I started with. Its the BMNG raw data file for July. You can download it from here. I used the 1.4GB file you can find at the end of that list. I also like to be able to point out to students in class where the ice packs are. Most notable is the northern ice cap. Any discussion about global warming and I talk about the Northwest Passage. Its fun to talmmmk to students about those old explorers like Roald Amundsen. The picture of the ice cap I use was taken in 2004. I can show the students that since the summer of 2009 the ice you see in this image has shrunk enough now that it is feasible to use the Northwest Passage in the summer. This image is also from Visible Earth and you can download it here. As well I needed to use the black and white raw bathymetry from here. For some reason in the July image I use a large chuck of the bathymetry data just above Antarctica is missing. So I grabbed the missing data from the black and white bathymetry data, colored it to match, then filled in the missing part of the image. It is labeled with up to date countries, capital cities, major cities, oceans, lakes, seas, gulfs, places of interest, Equator, Arctic Circle, Antarctic Circle, and the Tropic of Capricorn.  As well as features like mountains, plains, deserts, lowest ocean depths, and the highest and lowest points of each continent. As well as some extra places of special interest like Siberian Traps or Chicxulub Crater and many others.