Earth Matters

Where on Earth? Revealed

August 5th, 2011 by hriebeek

On July 29, the Earth Observatory posted an image (above) from the MISR Mystery Image contest. How did you do? Did you guess South Africa? The image is rotated so that north is in the lower right. Visible as a cement-colored grid at this distance, Cape Town sits at the head of the U-shaped bay, called False Bay.

The MISR team revealed the image location and answers to the associated trivia quiz on their web page. More than 470 people from all over the world entered the contest. Congratulations to the winners!

PS – Here is the image flipped around so that north is at the top…

9 Responses to “Where on Earth? Revealed”

  1. Kelvin D Lambright says:

    Keep up the good work your doing a real good JOB KELLY

  2. Clyde Fenner says:

    I Live in Dallas TX 75287 since 7/ 16./11 to 8/8/11 my toilet has flushed clockwise, today its been flushing counterclock wise. I spoke with others to see what way there toilet is flushing with the same answer, Counterclock wise. i thought if you lived in the northern hemisphere it should go clockwise. so does this means the equator shifted looking for answers.

  3. Mike Richardson says:

    Dear Sir,
    This was the first time I entered your quiz, however, I was very disappointed with your answers, some of which were obviously incorrect.
    For example, TableMountain is no where near the highest mountain in the Western Cape nor in the area covered by your photograph. Many peaks elsewhere in the area are in excess of 2000m
    Concering the dormant geological feature, Marion/Prince Edward Islands are many thousands of miles away and have never been considered part of the Western Cape. The most significant geological feature in the area is the Worcester fault which I referred to in my answer.
    I noticed that you did not receive a single correct answer from South Africa, which I believe was because your questions were poorly worded and some of your answers blantantly wrong.

    Kind regards, Mike Richardson.

    • IJM says:

      The original series of statements was presented as true or false choices (though I didn’t catch that at first). So some of the answers were blatantly wrong because they were intended to be.

    • Holli Riebeek says:

      Mike, you’re right, statement 5 was ambiguous. It read: The highest point in this region, located near the peninsula shown in the image, was first successfully climbed in the 16th century, according to records. The statement was true when initially written for a smaller image. The wider view that ended up getting published included mountains taller than Table Mountain, so the MISR team accepted both “true” and “false” as a response to that statement. They updated their list of correct respondents on their website.

  4. Ibrahim says:

    I liked it very much and informative in a different format, Keep the good work up with new innovations and striking products.

  5. AA Allen says:

    Can anyone provide me with a link to the correct answers? I was assured by NASA that I could access the correct answers after a date certain, but none of the purported websites have posted them so far . . .

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