Fascinating Photography From NASA

There is a branch of NASA called The Earth Observatory whose goal is to inform the public with pictures, videos and stories of NASA's diverse and interesting work. Some of the data that they provide seems a bit useless, but every so often you can find a great story, or some stunning photographs that have been taken from satellites in space. Here are a couple of examples:

Crop circles in southwester Kansas. Each small field is half a mile wide and each large field a mile. The circles are created by the central pivot irrigation system which is the most efficient method of irrigation for preserving the Ogallala Aquifer which lies beneath our country's Great Plains.

A steam plume rises up from the Shiveluch Volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. You can also see the brown ash that was blown to the right of the volcano.