The amazing zoomable photo and video below, shot by Russian weather satellite Electro-L, are derived from the the highest resolution images ever taken of Earth.
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The satellite, which is in orbit 36,000 kilometers above the equator, snaps a picture of the planet every 30 minutes, with resolution of up to 121 megapixels. The images are especially impressive for having been taken in a single snapshot. NASA images of the Earth are are often an amalgam of several photos.
“They’re not any better or worse than NASA images, but they show different things,” as Robert Simmons, a scientist at the NASA Earth Observatory, told Gizmodo.
The satellite uses four different wavelengths of light to capture these magnificent shots. The orange shown here represents vegetation.
