jtotheizzoe:

I Love This New Stunning HD View of Earth So Much I Could Hug it

Before you go any further, make that video 1080 and go as big as your processor will let you.

Elektro-L is a Russian weather satellite currently sitting in geostationary orbit at 36,000 km above the Indian Ocean. This video represents almost one week of images as observed from that satellite, one shot every half hour.

How does this stunning view differ from other “blue disk” shots? For one thing, it’s incredibly high-definition (121 megapixels, with each pixel equating to about 1 km). It’s also the first such image composed from one single image. That’s right, NASA stitches theirs together from many images (not that they aren’t awesome). There’s four light channels combined in this image, the usual red, blue and green as well as infrared (which makes vegetation look orange).

I could watch it for hours. So peaceful.

More videos (including an “upside-down” Earth) here.

(↬ Planet Earth)