January 13, 2012
Grand Views of the Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River is simply amazing when viewed from an orbital perspective. You instinctively recognize it, even though you have never seen it from this vantage point before. Somehow, your brain can warp all those vacation memories from visiting the South Rim into something recognizable. (Click on the images to see them full-size.)
But the amazement doesn’t stop there. Sometimes your brain can play little tricks. Under some lighting conditions the Grand Canyon does not look like a canyon at all. Instead, all you see are the arteries on a giant heart, as if someone were performing open heart surgery on Mother Earth.
Push on the corners of your eyes one more time, wait for the flashes to disappear, and now you see something entirely different. Instead of looking out the window of a spacecraft, you are looking out the window of a deep-sea submersible at some mucky-bottom seascape. You now see worms lying on top of the benthic sediment, happily doing whatever worms do on the bottom of the ocean.
So often, in the search for truth in nature, human perception masks how things really are.
Woow nice!
Comment by Nathan s — January 17, 2012 @ 12:11 pm
Nice shots! Will share with my 9YO son who visited there a couple of summers ago.
Comment by Matthew — January 17, 2012 @ 1:26 pm
These pix accentuate my smallness. Funny how my kids r a whole world to me. Perspective!
Comment by DrQuilter — January 17, 2012 @ 3:12 pm
looks like a sci fi pic…. amazing thanks for posting these photos.
Comment by Magz — January 17, 2012 @ 5:33 pm
[...] that look like Nature’s way of drawing with pen and ink. Geographic relief plays tricks on you. First you see the Grand Canyon as this deep scar. Blink your eyes and it is now a rippling bump. Thunderstorms cast shadows that look like they come [...]
Pingback by Perpetual Twilight | Letters to Earth — January 19, 2012 @ 3:28 pm
Great photos, Don. Keep in touch with us here on earth – we all love the photos and comments from you. Your “mom”-in-law
Comment by Jeanne and Bob Noland — January 20, 2012 @ 11:47 am
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Trackback by My Homepage — January 25, 2012 @ 3:34 am
[...] Grand Views of the Grand Canyon by Don Pettit. Breathtaking no? [...]
Pingback by Picture Kaleidoscope 1/25/12 « Gloria Oliver — January 25, 2012 @ 7:10 am
Nasa totally ripped you off. Check this out:
http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/letters/posts/post_1326990884518.html
Comment by Ashante Robinson — April 1, 2012 @ 4:57 pm
[...] (via Don Pettit) [...]
Pingback by Grand Canyon from Space « Data2364's Blog — February 14, 2013 @ 4:48 pm