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We’ve shared the images and a previous timelapse of Earth’s northern hemisphere, but now here’s a breath-taking timelapse of the entire blue (and green!) marble as seen from Russia’s Elektro-L weather-forecasting satellite, orbiting at a geostationary height of about 36,000 km (22,300 miles). This new video was created by James Drake using some of the largest whole disk images of our planet, as each image is 121 megapixels, and the resolution is 1 kilometer per pixel. The satellite’s wide-angle Multichannel Scanning Unit (MSU) takes images every 15-30 minutes, showing the same viewpoint of Earth across progressive times of the day and the images are in four different wavelengths of light — three visible, and one infrared.
It’s a beautiful view of home.
See more information about Elektro-L at the Russian Federal Space Agency’s Research Center for Earth Operative Monitoring (NTS OMZ). See more images and video from Elektro-L on James Drake’s Planet Earth website.
About Nancy Atkinson
Nancy Atkinson is Universe Today's Senior Editor. She also is the host of the NASA Lunar Science Institute podcast and works with the Astronomy Cast and 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts. Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador.
