BEAUTIFUL SIGHTS VIA SATELLITE FLIGHTS NOW

One of the most beautiful parts of flights is the overview perspectives they give us. High above, looking at our planet below, we gain a new understanding of where we are, who we are, and how our world’s pieces all fit together.

Daily Overview curated and shares incredibly beautiful images taken by Digital Globe’s camera in flight aboard a satellite as it travels around the earth.

Founder Ben Grant began the Overview project in 2013. He became Inspired by what is now known as the “Overview Effect”—a sensation that astronauts experience when given the opportunity to look down and view the Earth as a whole. His Daily Overview posts a Digital Globe satellite image each day that shows our planet as it spins through space and time.

The canola flower fields in Luoping County, China, form a golden puzzle. Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake of Utah, looks like a delicate doodle, belying its massiveness on the ground. Everything, whether naturally formed or designed by humans, offers a specific level of beauty when viewed from the specific height of a satellite flight.

Flying over the ground, the view appears to flatten, emphasizing color, texture, and two-dimensional organization. It also highlights change on a broader scale, pointing to impact on our planet.

Landscapes become abstract paintings. Patterns emerge. And our awareness increases. While much is beautiful, these overviews also show devastation, as human activity has degraded oceans and landscapes.

These photos will totally change your outlook on where you live and how you live, where you visit and where you put your energy.

Overviews offers the opportunity to reflect on Earth’s beauty and fragility in a unique way. “From our line of sight on the earth's surface, it’s impossible to fully appreciate the beauty and intricacy of the things we’ve constructed, the sheer complexity of the systems we’ve developed, or the devastating impact that we’ve had on our planet,” explains Grant.

Each Overview starts with a thought experiment. Grant considers the places where man has left his mark on the planet and then conduct the necessary research to identify locations (and the corresponding geo-coordinates) to convey that idea.

“When we look down at the Earth from space we see this amazing, indescribably beautiful planet — it looks like a living, breathing organism,” says NASA astronaut Ron Garan in the Overview film. “But it also, at the same time, looks extremely fragile.”

“We believe that beholding these forces as they shape our Earth is necessary to make progress in understanding who we are as a species, and what is needed to sustain a safe and healthy planet,” Grant says.

Grant offers a wonderful collection of satellite images In his new book, “Overview: A New Perspective of Earth,” he shares more than 200 images of life, both rural and urban, natural and industrial, organized and organic.

Follow Daily Overview images on the project’s website and Instagram to see the latest each day. Grant lives and works in New York City.

Read more about Beautiful Flights in Read more about Beautiful Flights in Beauty From a Drones-Eye View, Beautiful Feathers Make Beautiful Flights Happen, Flights of Fancy Fantasy Trip for Foodies Now and Crazy Beautiful Flights Now.

And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact Daily Fix posts.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by Digital Globe. Curated by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “Empty Quarter.” Saudi Arabia.
2. Image: by Digital Globe. Curated by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “Puente de Vallecas.” Madrid, Spain.
3. Image: by Digital Globe. Curated by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “New Bullards Bar Reservoir.” Yuba County, California.
4. Image: by Digital Globe. Curated by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson.” Great Salt Lake, Utah.
5. Image: by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “1300 Year Old Rice Terraces.” Yuanyang, China.
6. Image: by Digital Globe. Curated by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “Palm Tree Plantation.” Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
7. Image: by Digital Globe. Curated by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “Ipanema Beach.” Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
8. Image: by Digital Globe. Curated by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “Radiating Streets Surround the Plaza Del Ejecutivo in the Venustiano Carranza.” Mexico City, Mexico.
9. Image: by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “Stelvio Pass.” Alps, Italy.
10. Image: by Digital Globe. Curated by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “Tankers at the Port of Singapore.” Singapore.
11. Image: by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “Bondi Beach.” Australia.
12. Image: Courtesy of Amphoto Books. “Overview: A New Perspective of Earth,” by Benjamin Grant.
13. Image: by Digital Globe. Curated by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “Het Loo Palace.” Apeldoorn, Netherlands.
14. Image: by Digital Globe. Curated by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “Central Park.” New York.
15. Image: Courtesy of Daily Overview. Curated by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “Canola Flower Fields Cover the Landscape.” Luoping County, China.
16. Image: by BN App - Download now!
17. Image: by Digital Globe. Curated by Benjamin Grant, of Daily Overview. “Gemasolar Thermosolar Plant.” Seville, Spain.