NASA Asks Public for Selfies in Honor of Earth Day

This Earth Day, April 22, the Na­tional Aeronautics and Space Admin­istration (NASA) reminds us that there truly is no place like home with their social media campaign. To cel­ebrate the special day, NASA is asking the people of Earth to upload a pic­ture of their favorite place on this planet to social media sites like Face­book, Twitter, and Instagram, with hashtag #NoPlaceLikeHome.

For those that aren’t familiar with NASA, it is the US government agen­cy responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958, it was meant to encourage peaceful applications in space sci­ence. NASA focuses on providing a better understanding of the Earth, exploring astral bodies throughout the Solar System, and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang.

In a statement last Monday, NASA wrote: “This Earth Day, April 22, NASA is asking people around the world to share pictures and videos on social media that show there is no place like home—planet Earth,” ac­cording to prnewswire.com. This #NoPlaceLikeHome project hopes to get the public involved in the diver­sity of places, ecosystems, and land­scapes of our planet. NASA wants the pictures to answer just one question: What is your favorite place on Earth?

Last Earth Day, NASA held a similar project, called #GlobalSelfie, posing the question: Where are you on Earth right now? This project also utilized social media, and asked par­ticipants to post a selfie of where they were, with hashtag #GlobalSelfie. On NASA’s website they explain, “The goal was to use each picture as a pixel in the creation of a ‘Global Selfie’—a mosaic image that would look like Earth appeared from space on Earth Day.” It was a success last year, and with the growing use of technology and social media, this year’s campaign will likely succeed as well.

NASA’s Earth Day project this year is a fun-but important one, since it reminds us to think of our home on a much bigger scale, and to truly ap­preciate the most beautiful planet in our solar system—planet Earth.