In July 2012, while working on a story about wildfires, NASA’s science writer and social media manager Adam P. Voiland spotted a V-shaped plume of smoke caused by a wildfire in the Caribou Mountains in northern Alberta, Canada. That image made him wonder if there are other alphabets hidden among the millions of photos of earth’s surface taken by NASA’s satellites. It was a mammoth task, so he enlisted the internet in the ambitious project.  With the help of readers and colleagues, Voiland started collecting images of ephemeral features like clouds, phytoplankton blooms, and dust clouds that formed shapes reminiscent of letters. Now, over three years later, his search is completed and the results are exceedingly beautiful and educational.