14 DAY TRIAL // This past July 22, folks at NASA saw fit to remind us career- and gadgets-obsessed folks that, as cool as the latest technologies might be, our good old Earth is way cooler.
The photo above was taken earlier this year, on June 15, by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS, for short), and it shows part of the Baltic Sea and nearby countries as seen from space.
As detailed on NASA's official website, the image was obtained just as the Sun was setting. Hence the fact that, when observed from aboard the ISS, the water bodies featured in it appeared lit up.
“The coast of southern Norway is outlined near the horizon. The brightest reflection highlights the narrow sea passage known as the Skagerrak – revealing the thin tip of Denmark. Numerous small lakes in southern Sweden appear at image center.”
“The sweeping curves of the sand spit on the Polish coast and the long barrier islands on the Russian coast appear in the foreground, at the edge of the Sun’s reflection disc,” NASA writes in the photo's description.
In case anyone was wondering, the ISS astronaut that took this positively stunning photo of the Baltic Sea as seen from space did so with the help of a Nikon D3S digital camera using an 80-millimeter lens.