Nicaragua From Space

For a new perspective on Nicaragua, Chuck Wood (tychocrater@yahoo.com) has created today's NicaPOD. Chuck is a planetary geologist who studies landforms on earth and the planets, with a special interest in volcanoes, so Nicaragua is a fascinating place for him! While he worked at NASA he trained many astronauts to take photos of the earth from space, and has a deep understanding of interpreting images of the earth and other planets.

Above: "Looking like the mouth of an exotic fish this is a satellite image of where the Coco River meets the Gulf of Mexico. To the north is Honduras and to the south Nicaragua; the image shows an area about 15 km wide."

"We are all accustomed to savoring the scenic beauty of Nicaragua as we drive across the countryside or bask on a beach. But there is a larger scale beauty that none of us sees personally but can be enjoyed vicariously and that is the view from space. Ever since astronauts first carried a small camera on board the earliest spacecraft millions of images of Earth have been acquired from space. These show broad regional views of every place on Earth without the artificial boundaries that mark national borders. The land and its vegetation create most of the scene and only with significant enlargement can we see the cities and towns.

I have created a new website - Nicaragua from Space (http://nicaragua-from-space.wikispaces.com/ ) - that includes some of the most spectacular space images of Nicaragua. These were taken both by astronauts and by robotic spacecraft in visible wavelengths and many other parts of the spectrum. Nicaragua from Space is a wiki which means that you can contribute. In fact, it would be wonderful if viewers would add comments and identifications of the features shown."

Thanks Chuck for an awe-inspiring view of Nicaragua!

Chuck's other websites, wikis and blogs are:

Historic Wheeling: http://historic-wheeling.wikispaces.com
The Moon: http://the-moon.wikispaces.com
Lunar Photo of the Day: http://the-moon.wikispaces.com/LPOD
Chuck Wood's Moon: http://www.lpod.org/cwm/