View allAll Photos Tagged Copernicus
This is a detail from one of my mosaic sequences of the Moon taken on 7 February. Centre lower left is Copernicus, with Eratosthenes the next largest crater almost dead centre and the Apenninus mountain range stretching from the centre to the top right of the image.
As I was running the image sequence it looked briefly as if there was a face on Eratosthenes, with the central peak making a nose, two bright areas either side the eyes and a small crater within the lower part resembling a mouth. Perhaps there is a Man in the Moon after all!
Peter
Skywatcher Explorer with IMG132e camera
Processed in Registax. 1300 frame video.
Conditions very not ideal
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over the Lake Tai, the third largest freshwater lake in China. The lake, also known as Lake Taihu, is located in the Jiangsu province and is approximately 70 km long and 60 km wide, with an average water depth of approximately 2 metres. The lake discharges its waters through Wusong, Liu, Huangpu and several other rivers.
The Tai Basin is a very developed region in China, and includes the megacities Suzhou, visible east of the lake, Wuxi, visible north of the lake, and the nearby Shanghai. Over the past decades, rapid urbanisation, population growth and excessive fish farming have resulted in eutrophication – where the lake becomes enriched with minerals and nutrients.
The increase of nutrients deteriorate the water quality of the lake causing toxic algae blooms to form on the lake’s surface – threatening the quality for millions of people who depend on the lake as a source of drinking water.
In 2007, the algal blooms were so severe that the outbreak was declared a health emergency. Water supplies to Wuxi were suspended, leaving two million residents without drinking water for several weeks.
In this image captured on 24 May 2019, the algae-infested waters are clearly visible.
Algae blooms have been reported in the lake since the 1980s. Many attempts have been made to salvage the water quality of the lake including removal of the algae, closing chemical and manufacturing plants near Tai and stricter water treatment regulations.
However, the lake remains to be highly polluted. Agriculture, sewage and manufacturing still affect the lake’s waters – overloading it with nutrients.
Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission to supply the coverage and data delivery needed for Europe’s Copernicus programme. The mission’s frequent revisits over the same area and high spatial resolution allow changes in inland water bodies to be closely monitored.
This image is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
ZWO ASI178MC
Meade LX850 (12" f/8)
Losmandy G11
2000 frames captured in Firecapture
Best 60% stacked in Autostakkert
Wavelet sharpened in Registax
Finished in Photoshop
For Asteroid Day, the Copernicus Sentinel-2A satellite takes us over the Gosses Bluff crater in the Northern Territory of Australia. The crater is visible in the left centre of the image and it is about 22 km in diameter. It was most likely formed 140 million years ago by the impact of a large comet or meteorite slamming into the surface of Earth.
This false-colour image shows an extremely dry area with some vegetation visible in reddish colours along the rivers and lakes. The intense colours of the image represent the mineral composition of the land surface, which is clearly visible owing to the lack of vegetation. Azurite is one of the minerals mined here.
A series of low hills and drainage structures can be seen in the lower part of the image, a result of erosion over the years. The West MacDonell Ranges can be seen in the upper section of the image and part of the Petermann Ranges are shown in the lower section.
The crater is around 200 km west of Alice Springs, famous for being the gateway to the Red Centre, Australia’s interior desert region.
Asteroid Day brings people from around the world together to learn about asteroids, the impact hazard they may pose, and what we can do to protect our planet, families, communities, and future generations from asteroid impacts. It takes place on 30 June each year, which is the anniversary of the largest asteroid impact in recent history, the 1908 Tunguska event in Siberia.
This year, ESA is co-hosting a live webcast with the European Southern Observatory packed with expert interviews, news on some of the most recent asteroid science results, and the truth about the dinosaurs. Watch 30 June at 13:00 CEST.
This image, which was captured on 4 February 2016, is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2016), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
From Copernicus Eratosthenes crater is towards north-east , Reinhold is to the south-southwest (the darker/deeper one) and Reinhold B atop of Reinhold.
This shot was take on the 2014.06.07
I gave a go for new processing method with Autostakkert 2, result is promising :)
Copernicus Sentinel-3 view of Storm Mathis yesterday morning, bringing with it some strong winds and rain to parts of the UK ☔️
This image from over the Azores island of São Miguel features a volcanic complex called the Sete Cidades Massif.
The circular crater or caldera dominates the image and measures about 5 km across. The interior has lakes, volcanic cones, lava domes and maars – or shallow, flooded craters.
The Lagoa das Sete Cidades – or Lagoon of Seven Cities – is comprised of two ecologically different lakes that are connected by a narrow passage, visible at the centre of the image. The lake to the north is known as the Blue Lake while to the one to the south is the Green Lake for the colours they reflect.
According to the legend, the protected daughter of a king escaped to the surrounding hills, where she met and fell in love with a young shepherd. When the shepherd asked the king for his daughter in marriage, the king refused and forbade his daughter from seeing the boy again. The two met secretly one last time and cried until their tears filled the valleys to form the two lakes: one green as the Princess's eyes were green, and the other blue like the shepherd’s eyes.
In the surrounding area we can see the distinct lines where vegetation grows along waterways radiating from the circular massif. Between these lines are agricultural plots.
This image, also featured on the Earth from Space video programme, was acquired by the Spanish Deimos-2 satellite on 6 December 2014. With its high-resolution optical imager, the satellite can see down to a 75 cm ground resolution.
On 1 April, Deimos-2 will become a contributing mission to Europe’s Copernicus programme.
Credit: DEIMOS Imaging
The Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission takes us over Madagascar. This huge island nation, located off the east coast of Africa and seen in the left of the image, has a population of around 25 million. More than half of the country’s inhabitants are aged under 25. The island is also home to rare flora and fauna, having developed its own ecosystems and wildlife since splitting from the African continent some 160 million years ago.
Preserving its impressive biodiversity is an ongoing challenge for the country. With an area of almost 600 000 sq km, Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world. Some of the world’s most extensive coral reef systems, huge mangrove areas, and a vast array of birds, lemurs, and many other species can be found here. Deforestation poses a serious threat to the island’s habitats, with illegal wildlife trade representing a further challenge.
In this true-colour image from Copernicus Sentinel-3’s ocean and land colour instrument, we can see sediment in the water along the coast. The island appears in green on the east coast, where the prevailing trade winds bring clouds and up to 3.5 m of rain per year to the low-lying coast.
The central and western highlands and coast appear in brown and are much dryer, especially between May to October. The volcanic mountainous area of Ankaratra can be found in the central highlands. In the north of the island, the highest peak of Maromokotro stands almost 2900 m above sea level.
The Mozambique Channel, which separates Madagascar from the continent, is an important shipping route for east Africa and home to significant tuna reserves. Efforts are underway to ensure that sustainability is considered in local development. Identifying and protecting critical habitats, such as migratory corridors, is part of this work.
Sentinel-3 is a two-satellite mission to supply the coverage and data delivery needed for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme. It provides critical information for a range of applications from marine observation to large-area vegetation monitoring.
This image, which was captured on 7 August 2018, is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2018), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Successive radar images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1A satellite during December 2014 – March 2016 were used to create this spectacular map showing how fast the ice flows on the Antarctic Peninsula. The map was constructed by tracking the movement of ice features in pairs of radar images taken 12 days apart.
The Antarctic Peninsula is a narrow mountainous finger or spine of land extending northwards away from the Central Antarctic ice sheet (lower right corner) and comprises the northernmost arm of the Antarctic ice sheet.
The colour scale indicates the speed of ice movement in metres per day, ranging from 1 centimetre per day or less in dark blue to up to 1 metre per day in red. The vivid colours trace a complex network of channels along which streams of ice flow from the high mountains down towards the coast where the ice flow speeds up and spreads out into floating ice shelves.
The white area on the western flank of the peninsula is where snowfall is likely to have concealed features and so prevented tracking between the image pairs.
As one of the most dynamic glacial environments on Earth, this region has been experiencing rapid climate warming over recent decades. Since 1991, satellites such as ESA’s ERS and Envisat have observed the disintegration of various ice shelves, including the northern portion of the Larsen ice shelf and the Wilkins ice shelf.
The Sentinel satellites, developed by ESA, are central to Europe’s environmental monitoring Copernicus programme, which is committed to long-term operational services for a wide range of applications.
This example shows the spectacular potential of the Sentinel-1 mission for routine mapping and monitoring the surface velocity of glaciers and ice sheets. The combination of Sentinel-1A and -1B will support comprehensive and long-term monitoring of changes in ice sheet velocity and how they respond to climate change.
The Sentinel-1 ice velocity product was presented at ESA’s Living Planet Symposium in Prague, Czech Republic in May 2016 and three weeks earlier at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Austria.
Nagler T., Rott H., Hetzenecker M., Wuite J. (2016) Monitoring ice motion of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets at high spatial and temporal resolution by means of Sentinel-1 SAR. Living Planet Symposium, Abstract. ESA 2016. lps16.esa.int/page_session185.php#1218p
Wuite, J., Nagler, T., Hetzenecker, M., Blumthaler, U., Rott, H. (2016): Continuous monitoring of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet velocities using Sentinel-1 SAR. Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 18, EGU2016 –12826, 2016.
Credit: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2015), processed by Enveo
The Copernicus Sentinel-2A satellite takes us over the jagged islands along the west coast of Greenland in this false-colour image captured on 8 August 2017.
Covering more than 2 000 000 sq km, Greenland is the world’s largest island and home to the second largest ice sheet after Antarctica. But these ice sheets are sensitive to changes in our climate, and rising temperatures are causing them to melt faster.
Scientists use Earth-observing satellites to track the ice loss. Between 2011 and 2014, Greenland lost around 1000 billion tonnes of ice. This corresponds to a 0.75 mm contribution to global sea-level rise each year.
Melting ice sheets caused by rising temperatures and the subsequent rising of sea levels is a devastating consequence of climate change, especially for low-lying coastal areas. In addition, the increased influx of freshwater into oceans affects the salinity, which in turn affects global ocean currents – a major player in the regulation of our climate.
On the right side of this image, the Nordenskiold Glacier is just one of many glaciers draining Greenland’s ice sheet.
Vegetation appears red in this false-colour image, as the land here is covered by grasses and low-lying plants. Swirls of light blue in the water are suspended fine sediment produced by the abrasion of glaciers rubbing against rock, called ‘glacier milk’.
This image is featured on the Earth from Space video programme.
Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Copernicus is a lunar impact crater located in eastern Oceanus Procellarum.
It was named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. It typifies craters that formed during the Copernican period in that it has a prominent ray system
Diameter: 93 km
Depth: 3.8 km
Colongitude: 20
Eponym: Nicolaus Copernicus
Large smoke plume from the recent Canada wildfires, visible over NYC on 7 June. Many US states have experienced poor air quality as a result 😷
As seen by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite ️
The Copernicus Sentinel-2A satellite takes us over the Japanese capital of Tokyo.
Tokyo lies on the eastern shore of the island of Honshu, the largest of Japan’s four main islands. Greater Tokyo, which fans out further to the north and northwest than this image shows, is home to almost 38 million people, making it the largest megacity in the world.
The grey tones of this urban conurbation dominate the image and are in sharp contrast to the dark greens of the rugged mountains that flank the city to the west. The city centre lies mainly to the south of the Arakawa River, which empties into Tokyo Bay. The bay can be seen in the bottom right of the image. While many boats are visible in the bay, so is the Aqua-line, which is a combination of a bridge and a tunnel that spans the bay. The Aqua-line can be seen on the east side of the bay as a bridge that then disappears underwater as a tunnel. It has an overall length of almost 23.7 km, almost 10 km of which is tunnel – the fourth longest underwater tunnel in the world. A building that provides ventilation, as well as serves a rest stop, appears as an island-like structure above the tunnel.
More than half of the global population live in urban areas and, as more people flock to cities, expansion and development needs to be planned and monitored. The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission offers essential information for urban planners and decision-makers around the world.
The image, which is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme, was captured by Sentinel-2A on 8 May 2017.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This image of Romania – with the political borders in red – is a mosaic of 15 scans by Sentinel-1A’s radar in October and November.
The scans were acquired in ‘dual polarisation’ horizontal and vertical radar pulses, from which the artificial colour composite was generated.
The Carpathian mountains sweep down from the north and across the centre of the country.
Romania is home to the largest area of virgin forests in Europe, most of them in the Carpathians. These forests are home to brown bears, wolves and other animals, and many thermal and mineral springs can be found in the foothills.
The longest river in the EU – the Danube – flows along part of western Romania’s border with Serbia, as well as its southern border with Bulgaria. The river then flows northward and empties into the Black Sea via the Danube Delta, which lies within Romania and Ukraine – visible on the right side of the image.
Designated a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site in 1991, the Danube Delta is a labyrinth of river channels, lakes, bays, floodplains, marsh and reed beds. This vast triangular delta is home to an extremely rich variety of birds, fish, animals and plants.
Romania’s capital, Bucharest, is visible in the southern part of the country, as a cluster of bright radar reflections expanding outward from the centre.
Bucharest is also the site of next year’s Land Training Course, to be held in September. ESA organises the course each year devoted to train the next generation of Earth observation scientists in the exploitation of satellite data for science and applications development.
Credit: Copernicus data/ESA (2014)
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over the island of South Georgia. Linked with the South Sandwich Islands to form a British Overseas Territory, this southern Atlantic island is a haven for a vast array of wildlife.
Around five million seals call the islands home, as well as 65 million birds of 30 different species. Migrating whales and various fish species populate the surrounding waters and there is a large penguin population.
First discovered by Captain James Cook in 1775, there is no permanent human population on the island, due to its remote location and inhospitable environment. Nevertheless, a British Antarctic Survey research station operates in the capital, King Edward Point, in the island’s centre. This is a centre for applied fisheries research, while on Bird Island, lying off the north-west tip of South Georgia, scientists and support staff focus on research into bird and seal biology.
As we can see clearly in the image, South Georgia is mostly covered in snow. Its polar climate gives it short and very cold summers, and long, freezing and overcast winters. The rugged landscapes of the island are often said to leave visitors in awe, with two mountain ranges dominating - the Allardyce towards the middle of the island and Salvesen in the south.
In 2012 the UK Government designated South Georgia as one of the world’s largest sustainable use Marine Protected Areas. Significant investment has also been made in fisheries management and scientific research, as well as targeted conservation efforts to help protect the albatross. South Georgia is home to the Wandering Albatross – the largest flying bird species in the world.
Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission to supply the coverage and data delivery needed for Europe’s Copernicus programme. The mission’s frequent revisits over the same area and high spatial resolution allow changes in inland water bodies and the coastal environment to be closely monitored.
This image, which was captured on 22 February 2018, is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2018), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The Copernicus Sentinel-3B satellite captured its first image on 7 May 2018 at 10:33 GMT (12:33 CEST), less than two weeks after it was launched. The image shows the sunset over the Weddell Sea off the coast of Antarctica. While the line between day and night is clearly visible, bright streaks glint on the clouds from the sunset. The image was taken by the satellite’s ocean and land colour instrument, which features 21 distinct bands, a resolution of 300 m and a swath width of 1270 km. The instrument can be used to monitor aquatic biological productivity and marine pollution, and over land it can be used to monitor the health of vegetation. Sentinel-3B’s instrument package also includes a sea and land surface temperature radiometer, a synthetic aperture radar altimeter and a microwave radiometer. Sentinel-3B was launched from Russia on 25 April and joins its twin, Sentinel-3A, in orbit. The pairing of the two satellites optimises coverage and data delivery for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.
Go to our website to learn more about this image.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2018), processed by EUMETSAT, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
25th February 2018
ZWO ASI120MM Camera
Takahashi TOA-150 Refractor @ f/7.3
Mesu-200 mount
Processed in Autostakkert 2 & Registax, 400 frames from a 2000 frame sequence.
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over a swirl of sea ice off the east coast of Greenland in the Irminger Sea, which is just south of the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland.
Click on the box in the lower-right corner to view this image at its full 10 m resolution directly in your browser.
In this image captured on 9 June 2019, small pieces of sea ice, known as ice floes, trace out the ocean currents beneath, resulting in a large swirl-like feature of approximately 120 km in diameter.
This ice, which formed by freezing of the sea surface further north in the Arctic Ocean, has drifted southwards along the coast of Greenland before arriving at this location. The ice swirl is considered a typical eddy or vortex, commonly found in the summer marginal ice zone off the east coast of Greenland.
The marginal ice zone is the transition region from the open ocean, visible in dark blue, to the white sea ice. Depending on wind direction, waves and ocean currents, it can consist of small, isolated ice floes drifting over a large area to smaller ice floes pressed together in bright white bands.
Strong mesoscale air—ice—ocean interactive processes drive the advance and retreat of the sea ice edge, and result in the meanders or eddies visible in this region.
Investigations of such ocean eddies and meanders began in the 1970s and 1980s in the Greenland Sea to gain a better understanding of the interactions between the ocean, ice and atmosphere.
Copernicus Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission. Each satellite carries a high-resolution camera that images Earth’s surface in 13 spectral bands. Together they cover all Earth’s land surfaces, large islands, inland and coastal waters every five days at the equator.
This image is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA,CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
On Monday 22nd March 2021 at 20:08:53 GMT the International Space Station transited the 62% Waxing Gibbous Moon. Fortunately our back garden was just 0.3 km from the centre line so I was able to capture this despite the fact we're still in lockdown. There was a lot of thin cloud around so conditions were tricky!
Taken with a William Optics 70mm refractor and ASI120MC camera. A 1,340 frame video was captured using SharpCap, then the individual frames were extracted using PIPP. The 27 frames that contained the ISS were then stacked using StarStaX in Lighten mode. The stacked image was processed in Lightroom and Fast Stone Image Viewer. I then did a stack of the best 50% of the video frames using Autostakkert! 3 to give me a better result on the Moon. Once I'd processed that, I blended the stacked image with the ISS frames. This image is a crop showing the six frames where the ISS looked like it was flying over Copernicus!
This is only the second time I've imaged an ISS transit where the ISS was illuminated. It makes it much easier to see when it's about the cross the Moon!
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Gangotri, one of the largest glaciers in the Himalayas and one of the main sources of water for the Ganges River.
This huge ball of stars — around 100 billion in total — is an elliptical galaxy located some 55 million light-years away from us. Known as Messier 89, this galaxy appears to be perfectly spherical; this is unusual for elliptical galaxies, which tend to be elongated ellipsoids. The apparently spherical nature of Messier 89 could, however, be a trick of perspective, and be caused by its orientation relative to the Earth.
Messier 89 is slightly smaller than the Milky Way, but has a few interesting features that stretch far out into the surrounding space. One structure of gas and dust extends up to 150 000 light-years out from the galaxy’s centre, which is known to house a supermassive black hole. Jets of heated particles reach out to 100 000 light-years from the galaxy, suggesting that Messier 89 may have once been far more active — perhaps an active quasar or radio galaxy — than it is now. It is also surrounded by an extensive system of shells and plumes, which may have been caused by past mergers with smaller galaxies — and implies that Messier 89 as we know it may have formed in the relatively recent past.
Messier 89 was discovered by astronomer Charles Messier in 1781, when Messier had been cataloguing astronomical objects for 23 years — ever since he mistook a faint object in the sky for Halley’s Comet. Upon closer inspection, he realised the object was actually the Crab Nebula. To prevent other astronomers from making the same error, he decided to catalogue all the bright, deep-sky objects that could potentially be mistaken for comets. His methodical observations of the night sky led to the first comprehensive catalogue of astronomical objects: the Messier catalogue! Messier 89 holds the record for being the last ever giant elliptical to be found by Messier, and the most perfectly spherical galaxy in the entire catalogue of 110 objects.
The glacier’s terminus is called Gomukh, which means ‘mouth of a cow’, presumed to describe what the snout of this huge glacier once resembled. Importantly, the headwaters of the Bhagirathi River form here. In Hindu culture and mythology, this is considered to be the source of the Ganges and consequentially the destination for many spiritual pilgrimages and treks. Gomukh is a 20 km trek from the village of Gangotri, which is in the top left of the image. While Gomukh and Gangotri have much spiritual significance, the Bhagirathi River offers an important supply of freshwater as well as power as it passes through a number of power stations, including the Tehri hydroelectric complex 200 km downstream (not pictured).
Gangotri is in an area also known as ‘the third pole’, which encompasses the Himalaya-Hindu Kush mountain range and the Tibetan Plateau. The high-altitude ice fields in this region contain the largest reserve of freshwater outside the polar regions. With such a large portion of the world’s population dependent on water from these cold heights, changes in the size and flow of these glaciers can bring serious consequences for society by affecting the amount of water arriving downstream.
From the vantage point of space, satellites, such as the Copernicus Sentinels, provide essential information to monitor the changing face of Earth’s glaciers, which are typically in remote regions and therefore difficult to monitor systematically from the ground.
This image, which was captured on 7 January 2018, is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2018), processed by ESA,CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Lake Balaton in western Hungary. With a surface area of around 600 sq km and a length of around 78 km, this freshwater lake is the largest in central Europe.
The lake is mainly fed by the Zala River at its western end. The lakewater flows out near the eastern end via an artificial channel called the Sió, which eventually feeds into the Danube River.
Originally five separate water bodies, the barriers between have been eroded away to create the lake it is today. Remnants of the dividing ridges can be seen in Balaton’s shape – with the Tihany Peninsula on the northern shore narrowing the width of the lake to approximately 1.5 km.
Lake Balaton’s striking emerald-green colour in this image is most likely due to its shallow waters and chemical composition. It is heavy in carbonates and sulphates, and there are also around 2000 species of algae that grow in its waters.
The lake supports a large population of plant and animal species. During migration and wintering sessions, the site is an important staging area for thousands of ducks and geese.
Owing to its pleasant climate and fresh water, the Lake Balaton area is a popular tourist destination. The mountainous northern region is known for its wine, while popular tourist towns lie on the flatter southern shore.
Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission to supply the coverage and data delivery needed for Europe’s Copernicus programme. The mission’s frequent revisits over the same area and high spatial resolution allow changes in inland water bodies to be closely monitored.
This image, captured on 27 February 2019, is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The Copernicus Sentinel-1B satellite brings us over the Gulf of Finland, with part of Finland along the top, Estonia along the bottom and Russia to the right.
The gulf is the eastern arm of the Baltic sea, stretching all the way to St Petersburg in Russia. The waters are relatively shallow, with an average depth of 38 m and a maximum of about 100 m. During winter, the waters freeze until late spring.
Satellites play an important role during this season for shipping, providing information on ice cover and type that helps icebreaker boats navigate through the frozen waters. On the right side of the image, we can see the lines where icebreakers have created straight routes through the icy waters.
In the lower right we can identify another ice-covered body of water: Lake Peipus, straddling the border of Estonia and Russia. Covering over 3550 sq km, it is the largest trans-boundary lake in Europe.
Major cities appear as clusters of bright white radar reflections across the image, such as Tallinn in the lower left and Helsinki on the opposite side if the gulf.
The Fringe workshop on advances in radar science and applications took place this week in Helsinki. The event brought together scientists who work with data like those provided by Sentinel-1 to detect changes on the ground, such as tectonic activity, the ‘breathing’ of active volcanoes or the movements of buildings.
This image, also featured on the Earth from Space video programme, was captured on 8 February 2017.
Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Lunar close-up from last night.
Sky-watcher Skymax 102, ZWO ASI 120MC-S, Star Adventurer Pro.
Used Software: Firecapture, PIPP, Autostakkert, Registax
One of the well known lunar surface features is the Copernicus crater. This crater formed by impact of an asteroid 900 million years ago. The diameter of the crater is 90 km with depth of 3.7 km. To the left of it, is the ghost ring “Stadius”. Gear setup: iOptron iEQ30 pro, Celestron 127 SLT, ZWO 294 MC cooled @ 0 degree. Stacked in Autostakkart!, Wavelets by Registax, Edited in PS 2020 CC.
Copernicus is growing up so fast he wil be 5 months old on the 13th... But he will always be my baby, as are all my kitties.. He has the sweetest little face..
Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich safely tucked up in the Falcon 9 rocket fairing on the launch pad at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, US. Once launched, this new mission will take the role of radar altimetry reference mission, continuing the long-term record of measurements of sea-surface height started in 1992 by the French–US Topex Poseidon and then the Jason series of satellite missions.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over the Banks Peninsula on the South Island of New Zealand.
Banks Peninsula, visible in the bottom-right of the image, consists of two overlapping extinct volcanoes: the Lyttelton Volcano and the Akaroa Volcano. The peninsula was formed by several volcanic eruptions that took place around eight million years ago. The name of the peninsula comes from Sir Joseph Banks, a British biologist who sailed with Captain Cook.
Breaches in the crater walls led to the formation of two long, thin harbours: Lyttelton in the north and Akaroa in the south. The peninsula also has many other smaller bays and coves, giving it its unusual, cogwheel shape. Christchurch, the largest city on South Island, is visible immediately north of Banks Peninsula.
The jagged coastline heavily contrasts with the adjoining, flat Canterbury Plains. Extending around 80 km inland from the coast to the foothills of the Southern Alps, visible in the top-left of the image, the plains are a rich agricultural region known for wheat and barley, as well as wool and livestock.
The Rangitata, Rakaia and Waimakariri are the principal rivers visible in the image flowing southeast from the Southern Alps. The Rakaia river, visible in the centre of the image, is one of the largest braided rivers in New Zealand. The river travels for around 150 km before entering the Pacific Ocean. The turquoise colours visible in the ocean suggest the presence of sediment being carried into the ocean by river discharge, as well as algal blooms.
Between Rakaia river and the Banks Peninsula, lies Lake Ellesmere (Te Waihora). The lake is actually a shallow, coastal lagoon, with its emerald green colours most likely due to a high concentration of chlorophyll. The long stretch of land, visible in brown south of the lagoon, is the Kaitorete Spit and is a barrier that separates the lagoon from the Pacific Ocean.
Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission to supply the coverage and data delivery needed for Europe’s Copernicus programme. The mission’s frequent revisits over the same area and high spatial resolution allow changes in inland water bodies to be closely monitored.
This image, captured on 4 January 2019, is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO