Happy holidays at approximately 8km/sec

about illustration, science.

Now that the holidays are over, I’d like to share the illustration I did for our office annual holiday email – I’m very pleased with it! I should mention I work in international affairs for a satellite office. I was going for ‘holidays’ without a specific religion or world region focus. Also tried to come up with something not too overdone. And so we have: bird’s-eye view of an abstract world with a stylized aurora!

Illustration for 2012 NOAA NESDIS IIAD holiday card

I especially like that the Suomi-NPP satellite is recognizable. Well, recognizable to the small percentage of the population that looks at satellite bodies on a regular basis :) See?

Suomi NPP satellite

PS: Curious about the 8km/sec? That is the approximate speed of a satellite in low-Earth orbit as it zooms around the globe. ::WHOOSH!::

Feature image Stars
Source Guillaume