NASA astronaut Sunita Williams confirms world is round

New Delhi: After delivering the Inaugural Professor VN Vazirani Institute Lecture at IIT Delhi, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams described the overview effect, “My perception of the overview effect is that you are looking down at the Earth and it is a planet. At first you want to find home, you are looking for something that is familiar. I am from the East Coast of the United States, it is where I grew up, so it is easy to find. Cape Cod has a distinguished curl to it, so I am looking and I can see that, and then I can see where Boston is, I can see where Mumbai is, which is pretty easy. So, you are looking for things that remind you of home, because that is home. And then, after a time of being up there, you stop doing that, because all of it is home.”

Williams then went on to confirm that the Earth is indeed round, “You look at the Earth, it is living, it is breathing, the atmosphere is changing, the ocean is changing, and then there are like algae blooms in the ocean that are swirling off the coast of South America, or there is ice in the North Atlantic that actually does some amazing twirls and turns as it is freezing. You cannot see these actions happening right at the moment of time, but you can see it after a little while, and you start looking at the Earth that way. To me, that is my overview effect, that we are living on a planet, and it is round by the way, just in case anybody has a doubt about that.”

The need to protect the planet

Sunita Williams also highlighted the need to protect the planet, saying, “We are living in a planet, and this is our home, where we live, 71 per cent is water and there is only 28 point something per cent that is land, and we are on that. Also when I am looking at it, every planet, every animal, every person, every fish that I have ever heard about, learned about in school, is right there, it is nowhere else that we know right now, and we should be protecting ourselves. We should be working together.” Sunita Williams retired recently after a 27-year long career, after spending 608 days in Earth orbit.