Earth Matters

May Puzzler Answer

June 21st, 2015 by Adam Voiland

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Congratulations to reader John Radford for being the first to solve our May 2015 puzzler. As John noted: “It is East Java looking across Surabaya towards Bali and further islands. The numerous lights in the Java Sea must be mostly fishing boats though the cluster dead center may be partly Pulau Kangean lights. The yellowish isolated light about 3/4 of the way up and left of center must be Makassar. The white flash to its left probably is lightning strike onto West Sulawesi proper. The entire landscape is volcanic in origin, Indonesia being the most volcanically active country in the world, at the junction of 4 tectonic plates.” Congratulations also to Claudia for being the first reader who noted it was a photograph taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station. The perspective isn’t exactly the same, but below is a view of the same general area from Google Earth.

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