Despite mankind’s woes, Earth remains pretty in NASA book

NASA has released a new coffee table book and downloadable PDF and iPad app that illustrates stunning photography of our planet.

One of the neat things about applications like Google Earth and Google Maps is the ability to virtually travel to different places around the planet. Thanks to features like detailed satellite imagery and street view, we can visit millions of places while surfing the Web in our pajamas, even if the areas are off limits to most people in reality. If you’re into this type of exploration, NASA has released a new book (print and digital), “Earth as Art,” that features 75 amazingly beautiful terrain photos taken by satellites orbiting Earth.

The images show places like the “Himalayas, Arizona’s Painted Desert, the Mississippi River Delta spreading into the Gulf of Mexico (shown above), a Saharan dune sea in Algeria, and Byrd Glacier in Antarctica,” according to NASA’s release. Although NASA is behind the project, the images were captured by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Landsat 5 and 7 environmental satellites, in addition to NASA’s Terra, Aqua, and Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) environmental satellites.

The book is available as a free downloadable PDF or as an iPad app that lets you zoom in on the images and find out more information about the images. To show off the photos at your next Tupperware party, the book is also available as a 158-page hardcover coffee table edition for $44.

(Image via NASA)