I got this 1.7MB PowerPoint file attached to an email showing a series of stunning images of the earth from space. I particularly enjoy the images showing the shadow line between day and night.
BlueBeauty 1.7 MB slide show might take a while to download.
The last slide motivates the viewer to ‘send’ this file out wide. I am not sure as to who owns the images, as only agencies like NASA or ESA could capture such images, so the intellectual property might be an issue with this PowerPoint file. If it is a NASA image then there seems not much of a problem here.
On the NASA site they state as for the guidelines to use their materials they state:
Using NASA Imagery and Linking to NASA Web Sites
Still Images, Audio Files and Video.
NASA still images, audio files and video generally are not copyrighted. You may use NASA imagery, video and audio material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits and Internet Web pages.
That Blue Beauty PPT presentation is continuing to make the rounds of the Internet despite it being no more than a presentation of well-crafted Photoshop images.
The initial close-ups of parts of the earth are accurate enough. It’s the terminator photos between daylight and night which are absolute rubbish (at least from an astronomical viewpoint).
The slide entitled “Our Planet in the middle of the universe at night” purports to be a shot from a satellite. Pity there is no sun shining anywhere on the globe. And amazingly enough, it and the next five photographs are shown against exactly the same field of stars in the background.
The discrepancies in the more detailed “photos” of the terminator line are equally numerous, but it should be simply sufficient to note the complete absence of clouds in any of these terminator photos.
Considering the effort you made to explain a wrinkle which appears in subsequent reproductions of a 1525 woodcut, I think it’s sad to leave this rubbish on your website.