NASA calls on people to take ‘global selfie’ for Earth Day

5 Apr 2014

Selife photo via NASA/JPL

US space agency NASA is calling on earthlings to take part in a global selfie event on Earth Day, 22 April, to mark the launch of five Earth-observing satellites in the space of one year.

Designed to encourage environmental awareness and recognise the agency’s ongoing work to protect our home planet, NASA’s ‘global selfie’ event asks people everywhere to take a picture of themselves wherever they happen to be.

On Earth Day, NASA will monitor photos posted to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and Flickr. Photos posted to Twitter, Instagram or Google+ using the hashtag #GlobalSelfie, or to the #GlobalSelfie Facebook event page and the #GlobalSelfie Flickr group will be used to create a crowd-sourced mosaic image of Earth, described by NASA as a new ‘Blue Marble’ built bit by bit with #GlobalSelfie photos.

NASA’s total of 17 Earth science missions now in orbit help scientists piece together a detailed ‘global selfie’ of our planet day after day.

Insights from these space-based views are aimed to help answer some of the challenges facing our planet today and in the future, including climate change, rising sea levels, and extreme weather events.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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