The blaze raging its way through a national forest in the Yosemite National Park area, known as the Rim fire, can be seen with frightening clarity at the center of this image taken by NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite on August 23. The size of the fire is especially obvious in this view, as compared to Lake Tahoe outlined above it, San Francisco Bay to the left and Las Vegas to the right.
The satellite, launched in October 2011, has a new type of infrared sensor that has a “day-night band” that can detect natural and man-made light with unprecedented resolution and clarity — six times better spatial resolution and 250 times better resolution of lighting levels than previous instruments.
via Wired
