(NASA)
NASA is celebrating Earth's incredible natural beauty with a new book featuring stunning images collected from the space agency's many satellites.
"For all of the dynamism and detail we can observe from orbit, sometimes it is worth stepping back and simply admiring Earth. It is a beautiful, awe-inspiring place, and it is the only world most of us will ever know," writes Michael Carlowicz in the book's introduction.
The book is called "Earth" and is divided into four sections: atmosphere, land, water and ice and snow.
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The photographs provide gorgeous, sometimes otherworldly glimpses of Earth's varied land and seascapes.
NASA captured Hurricane Madeline moving toward the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean. "The tight, deep eye of category 3 Hurricane Madeline appears almost three-dimensional even in a two-dimensional satellite view," the space agency says in the book.
The image above, which depicts sulfur and plankton off the coast of Namibia in Africa, looks like a painting.
"The Benguela Current flows north and west from South Africa. It is enriched by iron and other nutrients from the Southern Ocean and from dust blowing off African coastal deserts. Easterly winds push surface waters offshore and promote upwelling near the coast, which brings up cold, nutrient-rich waters from the deeper ocean. These interactions can make the ocean come alive with color."
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The epic image above depicts Bowknot Bend, a section of the Green River Canyon in Utah named as such because of the way the river doubles back on itself. The loop carries rafters nine miles, according to NASA, before bringing them back to where they started.
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