The Paleo-Earth Project - Happy Earth Day

For those of you who are used to seeing the rotating image of the earth as a kind of stat counter along the upper left hand side of Penigma - look more closely at the image on the left, and then at the one below.  This is a glorious way to celebrate the anniversary of the Hubble telescope, and it delights my inner science geek.  I hope it pleases our Penigma readers as well.  Looking at it from this angle, from this perspective, earth day takes on a different meaning.  It provides us a more thoughtful way of looking beyond our immediate horizons and interests to the longer view of our evolution on this planet, and the marks we leave behind.  It is humbling; it is exhilarating; it is provocative.  Enjoy!

From the introduction to the Paleo Earth project, based in Puerto Rico:

The goal of the Visible Paleo-Earth project is to visualize in true-colors the evolution of Earth surface from paleo-climates to today. We are using paleogeography and paleoclimate reconstructions combined with NASA satellite imagery to generate our best interpretation of the global visual appearance of Earth in the last 750 million years, as seem from space.

We are using the information of NASA Blue Marble - Next Generation to recreate the color of our images. The “blue marble” image (right) is the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center stitched together months of observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer of our planet.

Here we show a sample of two (below), current Earth and the Late Cambrian Period. The four top views correspond each to the same 90°rotation angles, centered in the 180°, 90°, 0°, and -90° longitudes, respectively. You can compare how much the same face of the Earth changed in each frame during its history.

Our images will be also generated with true optical physical effects, including specular reflection and atmospheric effects, to better simulate the view from space. The two full rotation video compositions shown at the end took over two hours each of computing time to be rendered. These are available as high definition movies in 720p QuickTime format for Earth today and 500 Mya.

Additional versions of the poster figures will include features labels and climate information. We will also work in a Visual Neo-Earth, to visualize future terrestrial scenarios including vegetation shift due to climate change. These images can be used in studies of the terrestrial evolution of visual albedo, color, light curve, climate, and habitability. The images and animations will be available for scientists and educators.

It is not a project about our modern earth; the Paleo Earth project is about a longer view of our planet's history.