(Image Credit: NASA-Goddard)

Breath on a marble? A pog with sunglasses? Mother Earth with a tan line? Well, the last is the closest. What we have here is a satellite image (taken on September 24, 2002) of the infamous Ozone "Hole" over Antarctica. Ozone is depicted as dark blue and magenta. The image shows the "hole" actually split into 2 different "holes," the first time this has been seen since NASA first started making satellite measurements. An image taken by the same satellite a year ago shows a single ozone hole covering 26.5 million square kilometers — that’s larger than the North American continent. The 2002 hole is the smallest since 1988. Apparently, as NASA scientists report, higher Antarctic temperatures appear to have reduced the 2002 hole by about 40 percent.

To read more about the shrinking "hole" go to: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020926ozonehole.html