The atmosphere on the limb of the Earth looks like something we definitely need to take care of.

 

“We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully, nor for much longer, unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.” ~ Buckminster Fuller

American architect, systems theorist, author, designer and inventor Buckminster Fuller referred to our planet as Spaceship Earth, and each of us as its passengers. The spaceship that we’re on is like any other spaceship and has a life support system: the biosphere. Described as the layer of planet Earth where life exists, the biosphere’s layer ranges from kilometers above sea level to depths of the ocean. In other words, the ocean is Mother Earth’s life support, providing food, regulating our atmosphere and shaping our coastal environments. 50 to 70% of our oxygen comes from the ocean.

To celebrate Earth Day, we’ve selected some of NASA astronaut Scott Kelly’s space pictures. During a 340-day journey on the International Space Station that ended last January, Kelly captured unique photographs of our planet’s landforms, oceans and waterways. Travelling nearly 144 million miles during 5,000 trips around the Earth helped Kelly think about the planet as a whole: »When you look at the atmosphere on the limb of the Earth, I wouldn’t say it looks unhealthy, but it definitely looks very, very fragile and just kind of like this thin film, so it looks like something that we definitely need to take care of.«

From a polar vortex to watercolors in the Bahamas, from a frozen lake in the Himalayas to a colour palette of the Spanish coast, U.S astronaut Scott Kelly turned Earth’s lands and waters into artistic abstract photographs. Here’s our selection.

Discover more of Scott Kelly’s space pictures on his Twitter

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