Night following day shown in real time

Seven people died shortly after observing the scene shown above. They were the crew of NASA's Columbia spacecraft and the picture was taken on a cloudless day during its last mission.

The photograph from the doomed space vehicle is of Europe and Africa when the sun is setting. Half of the picture is of night-time. The bright dots are city lights. The lights are already on in Holland, Paris, and Barcelona.

It is yet daylight in Edinburgh, London, Lisbon, and Madrid. The sun is still shining on the Strait of Gibraltar, but the Mediterranean is already in darkness.

The "little bit of Heaven that fell from out the skies one day", including that portion of it which Irish President Mary McAleese as a young girl from Belfast likened to Paradise (Donegal), is facing westward across the broad Atlantic to Newfoundland and beyond.

The top part of Africa is the Sahara Desert. The Sahara is huge and can be seen clearly both during day and night-time.

In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean are the Azores Islands, below them and to the right are the Madeira Islands, a bit further below are the Canary Islands, and further south, close to the farthest western point of Africa, are the Cape Verde islands.

To the left, at the top, is Greenland, totally frozen.

At this season let us share a thought and a prayer for the crew members of Columbia, killed during re-entry to earth's atmosphere on February 1, 2003. They were Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, David Brown, Laurel Blair Salton Clark, Michael P. Anderson, Ilan Ramon, and Kalpana Chawla.

And to all readers of this e-zine, we wish a happy, holy, and peaceful Christmas.

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