With so many eyes in the sky there is no shortage of beautiful views of the Earth. This new shot — showing never before seen color and detail — is one single image at 121 megapixels (0.62 miles per pixel). The image comes courtesy of Russia’s Elektro-L geostationary weather satellite located 36,000 kilometers above the equator taking a picture of the entire planet every 30 minutes.
The beautiful colors are somewhat surprising, with the dark orange or rust colors actually representing the vegetation around the globe.
So what’s behind the unusual colors? The scientists operating the Elektro-L mixed various light wavelengths; they used three reflected sunlight bands, and two near infrared bands. The three sunlight bands simulate the colors you’d see in conventional pictures; it’s the near infrared that picks up on vegetation since plants reflect in near infrared as well as green.
via DVICE
