Figure 1 – Central Russia in winter from the International Space Station, image by Cmdr. Chris Hadfield, from NASA and in the public domain.

I often visit the galleries on the NASA website for the pure beauty that they offer and the site really never disappoints.  So today I’d like to share with you the image of Figure 1 showing snow-covered farmland in Central Asia looking like a wonderful and complex patchwork, perhaps a blanket.  It was taken last winter on February 25 from the International Space Station by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who calls it “a monochromatic 3-D hallucination in the snow.”

I think that part of the charm here is that it is a black and white photograph.  As a result it connects and is very reminiscent of the first areal photograph taken from a hot air balloon over Boston by John Black in 1858. We seem to never tire of photographs from above, where we essentially watch ourselves.  Perhaps it is an anser to the age old desire to soar like and eagle and look down at the strange inhabitants below , who are forced to cling precariously to the Earth.