Maps  /  ,

The first photo of the United States by NASA satellite

Jan 9, 2015

In 1974, NASA published their first satellite photo of the contiguous United States by stitching together a bunch of individual images.

A giant photo map of the contiguous 48 states of the United States, the first ever assembled from satellite images, completed for NASA by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service Cartographic Division. The map is 10 by 16 feet, is composed of 595 cloud-free black-and-white images returned from NASA’s first Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS-1). The images were all taken at the same altitude (912 kilometers: 560 miles) and the same lighting angle. The images were produced by the spacecraft’s Multi-spectral Scanner System (MSS) in Band 5, or the red portion of the visible spectrum, during the period July 25 to October 31, 1972.

Become a member. Support an independent site. Get extra visualization goodness.

See What You Get

Favorites

Who We Spend Time with as We Get Older

In high school, we spend most of our days with friends and immediate family. But then we get jobs, start a family, retire, and there’s a shift in who we spend our days with.

All the Household Types in the U.S.

No need to restrict ourselves to the most common types. There are thousands. Let’s look at all of them.

Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

The individual data points of life are much less predictable than the average. Here’s a simulation that shows you how much time is left on the clock.

How You Will Die

So far we’ve seen when you will die and how other people tend to die. Now let’s put the two together to see how and when you will die, given your sex, race, and age.