Aorounga crater, Sahara Desert, Chad

When you imagine looking at yourself from a distance you get a sense of objectivity about you – the physical person, stepping outside your mind to momentarily separate from your thoughts. It’s a great little excercise to do if you’re ever feeling caught up in your head or involved in a stressful situation. Perspective.

Satellite imagery of earth does the same kinda thing, an outer orbit experience if you will. You don’t see towns or cities or businesses or houses or people or animals, but scars on a planet from millions, some of them billions, of years ago – bigger than anything we’ve ever known, bigger than all the things that seem big. And they’ll be here long after we will.

Our atmosphere protects us these days, but it’s not entirely out of the question that we’ll cross paths with gigantic mass of alien rock again, and if it did - not even Aerosmith or Ben Affleck could save us.

Let’s just look at the pretty pictures….

The Vredefort Dome, South Africa

The Gosses Bluff crater, Northern Territory, Australia

The Spider crater, Western Australia

Clearwater Lakes, Quebec, Canada

The Roter Kamm crater, Namibia

The Manicouagan Crater, Northern Canada

The Shoemaker crater, Western Australia

Images via NASA

About Ingrid Schroder

A Sydney-side freelance graphic designer, photographer & yoga teacher - I find myself turning to nature for guaranteed revival from the crazy pace of city life - be it digging in my garden, capturing natural beauty through a lens, floating in the ocean, practicing yoga or out exploring this incredible planet we all call home. Follow me on twitter @Cohabitaire