Inauguration, as seen from space

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By Phillip Torrone
Posted 2009/01/20 @ 5:17 pm
Category Art & Design

The other day I wrote about how the GeoEye-1 satellite would be taking images of President Obamaâ€™s inauguration from 423 miles up â€” in space. This could have only worked on a clear day, so that clouds werenâ€™t blocking the view. Good news: It was a clear day, and the pictures (above and below) look great.

The pictures show the view from the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the surrounding areas. See those things that look like ants? Yeah, those are people â€” millions of them.

The GeoEye-1 is also known by some as the â€œGoogle Satelliteâ€ because Google has the rights to use some of its images for its Google Earth and Google Maps products.

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5 Responses to Inauguration, as seen from space

Satan in Rome on January 20th, 2009 at 6:36 pm said:

I don’t know about you guys but despite the fact that these images are awesome, I still think they look gross. Looks like a really huge pile of insects…
And considering the swarm experiments done with humans, it isn’t that far fetched…(we do behave like insects in some situations.)

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Phillip Torrone on January 20th, 2009 at 6:59 pm said:

it is us, bugs and all.

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Steve Keys on January 20th, 2009 at 11:54 pm said:

Looks like legions of Orcs attacking Minus Tirith.

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RocketGuy on January 21st, 2009 at 9:20 am said:

If you look carefully, you can tell where the screens are, by where people are (and aren’t) standing.

There are “population shadows” cast by some of the small buildings, like near the Washington Monument.

Cool pictures, it sure does look cold though.

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kunderemp on January 24th, 2009 at 6:06 am said:

You said “The pictures show the view from the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the surrounding areas” but there is no Lincoln Memorial in the picture. I see Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum but no Lincoln Memorial.

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