NASA says this looks like the letter “V,” but I say it looks like a “Z.” Photo: NASA
I know there aren’t many people who spend as much time looking at images of Earth from space as I do. But there some out there, and NASA wants your help.
Adam Voiland of NASA’s Earth Observatory found the photo above that looks like a huge, cloudy “V.” He’s even speculated about which font it may be. I think this looks like a “Z,” but Voiland clearly spends more time looking at satellite imagery than I do, so we’ll defer to him for now.
More Earth from Space:
But what about the rest of the alphabet? Voiland would like to assemble the entire alphabet from space, so if you’ve seen a letter, let us know and perhaps your contribution will be featured by NASA or Wired. He suggests looking for letter-shaped clouds, smoke, dust, ice or phytoplankton blooms. I imagine there may be literary glaciers, rivers, islands, forests, faults and mountain ranges as well. Just make sure the letter stands out clearly against the background.
This quest is not limited to the English alphabet either: Any alphabet is welcome (just indicate which alphabet and which character you have found). And why not numbers and punctuation as well? Voiland recommends some places to start hunting.
We’ll put together a gallery of the best letters and characters for Wired Science, so send your entries to us at wiredsciencepics at gmail, and we’ll pass them on to Voiland as well.
Image: Courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE MODIS Rapid Response. This image was acquired on July 11, 2012, by the Aqua satellite.
