NASA’s new satellite offers stunningly high resolution images of earth
Jan 24, 2017
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Share:
The GEOS-16 satellite lifted off in November last year. The satellite contains an Advanced Baseline Imager, which boasts images of earth at four times the resolution of any other satellite. Scientists, meteorologists and regular weather & science enthusiasts around the world have been itching to see those first images. Well, now they’re in and they look amazing.
Below is a “full-disk” image of the earth. It comes in at a rather sizeable 117.4 megapixels, and the satellite can produce one of these every 15 minutes.
The detail contained within the disk really is astounding. To give you some idea of just how much 117.4 megapixels really is, at the top of the disk above, you can see the Great Lakes. Here’s a 100% crop of that section showing three of them. On the top left is Lake Superior, Lake Michigan in the middle at the bottom, and Lake Huron to the right.
Designed to predict severe weather on earth, this is the most sophisticated technology ever sent into space. The amount of detail it can gather, and the speed at which it can do it is mind boggling.
In May, NOAA will announce the planned location for GEOS-17. By November, GEOS-16 will be in place, operating as either GEOS-East or GEOS-West.
The GEOS-16 satellite has five times greater coverage, four times the spatial resolution and three times the spectral channels than earlier generations. Two full disk images shot by two NOAA satellites on the same day (Jan 15, 2017), GEOS-16 on the left, and GEOS-13 on the right, shows just how much extra detail it captures.
I can’t wait to see the kind of imagery this thing sends back in the future. The kinds of things we can learn from it about our home will be invaluable. It will offer us insights into predicting weather and other patterns not as easily possible in the past.
You can view more images from NOAA’s GEOS-16 image gallery here.
[via DIGG]
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Related Posts
Does Adobe’s Super Resolution eliminate the need for high resolution cameras?
NASA releases incredibly high-resolution Earth-rise photo captured from above the lunar surface
New satellite shares incredibly detailed images of Earth’s weather
Microsoft’s new tool turns blurry satellite images into high-quality “drone photos”
Join the Discussion
DIYP Comment Policy
Be nice, be on-topic, no personal information or flames.
4 responses to “NASA’s new satellite offers stunningly high resolution images of earth”
Funny how they show mainly North and South America
The satellite is in geostationary orbit over the Americas, i.e. it’s at a fixed longitude. It won’t see anything other than that hemisphere, unless moved to a different longitude. Hence, only images of the Americas.
Interesting info thanks for that
Its geostationary. Its what geostationary satelittes do.