A Map of All the Plants on Earth [PHOTOS]

The green parts of the blue planet. Image courtesy of NASA/NOAA Most views of our planet from space draw attention to the water-covered majority of its surface, hence the nickname Big Blue Marble. In this visualization of the globe, though, the SUOMI satellite focused on the world's plant life, and shows just how much it can change over the course of a year. The satellite gathered the data between April 2012 to April 2013 by measuring reflections of the sun's energy in the form of visible and near-infrared light. Plants absorb visible light for photosynthesis. In densely vegetated areas like rainforests, then, the leaves absorb the vast majority of visible light and reflect most of the near-infrared light back into space. In contrast, areas without much greenery, such as deserts, reflect the majority of both visible and near-infrared light. The SUOMI satellite determines the density of plants by measuring the ...