NASA Unveils Earth Image Caption Contest

Home, sweet home. Earth as it appeared on Jan. 4. CREDIT: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring. View full size image

NASA announced today a caption-writing contest that gives anyone with an eye for beauty, a flair for words and the dedication of a detective the chance to describe some of the space agency's most breathtaking images.

Each week, the agency will post a mystery image captured by one of the many satellites orbiting our planet. Some of the images will be natural-color images, others will be enhanced to reveal the intricacies of some feature below, but no matter what the image is, anyone with a Web connection can take a stab at identifying the location, the instrument that snapped it, and other interesting details, according to a NASA statement.

Entries can be just a few words, or as long as a few paragraphs, but ideally shorter than 400 words.

Although NASA isn't offering big monetary rewards, they're offering something that might be even more valuable — fame on the Internet. About a week after a mystery image is posted on their blog Earth Matters, NASA will post an annotated version of the winning entries as the caption of their Image of the Day.

The person who first correctly identified the location depicted in the image will get a credit, along with people who sent in the most intriguing tidbits of information — so make sure to include your name, or the way you'd prefer to be identified, with any submissions.

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