This Is the Earth (in 36,422 Selfies)

 By 
Colin Daileda
 on 
This Is the Earth (in 36,422 Selfies)
The images depict both halves of the globe. Credit: SCREENSHOT, GIGAPAN

All the world's a selfie. It just took NASA's help to figure that out.

NASA created a mosaic of the globe from 36,422 selfies taken by people across the planet and released the image on Thursday.

On Earth Day this year, NASA asked people around the world to submit selfies on social media using the hashtag #GlobalSelfie and to answer the question, "Where are you on Earth right now?" People wrote their locations on sheets of paper and submitted photos via Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Facebook and Google+ from 113 countries and regions.

The selected images were turned into a single 3.2-gigapixel image for the finished product. (More than 50,000 photos were submitted, according to NASA, but some were not "accessible or usable.") The "global selfie," as NASA called it, is an image of what the planet looked like from space on Earth Day, April 22.

Mashable Image
NASA chose 36,422 selfies out of over 50,000 that were submitted. Credit: SCREENSHOT, GIGAPAN
Mashable Image
The images depict both halves of the globe. Credit: SCREENSHOT, GIGAPAN

Viewers can get the full global selfie experience on the mosaic's interactive site, hosted by GigaPan. You can zoom in to individual selfies with the click of a mouse or click and drag across the screen to get to different parts of the world.

Or, if you prefer to see the selfies in music video form:

The image of the globe was based on a snapshot of each hemisphere of the globe captured by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite. That satellite is equipped with a visible infrared imaging radiometer suite that it to take the images, and is jointly operated by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

If you visit the site, you can also view individual selfies by clicking on "snapshots" in the bottom left corner.

BONUS: #5facts You Didn't Know About Selfies

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