The European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Antofagasta, a port city in northern Chile.
ESA video after the break »
Tag: Space
The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar and southernmost Spain in Europe from northern Morocco in Africa.
Learn more at the European Space Agency.
The European Space Agency takes us over the Galápagos Islands – a volcanic archipelago situated some 1000 km west of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean.
More information is available from the European Space Agency.
The video of the Banks Peninsula, on the South Island of New Zealand, is presented by the European Space Agency (ESA).
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 European Space Agency (ESA) brings us a video of the Amazon River meandering through one of the most vital ecosystems in the world, the Amazon rainforest, and six countries in South America.
The Amazon River originates in the Andes Mountains of Peru and travels through Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Brazil before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean.
The Amazon river begins its journey in the Andes and makes its way east through six South American countries before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean on the northeast coast of Brazil. The river has a length of around 6400 km – the equivalent of the distance from New York City to Rome.
The Amazon is considered the widest river in the world with a width of between 1.6 and 10 km, but expands during the wet season to around 50 km. With more than 1000 tributaries, the Amazon River is the largest drainage system in the world in terms of the volume of its flow and the area of its basin. As a consequence of its ever-changing flow, older riverbeds can be seen as thin lines around the main river at the top of the image.
One of its tributaries, the Javari River, or Yavari River, is visible as a thinner blue line weaving through the tropical rainforest. The river flows for 870 km, forming the border between Brazil and Peru, before joining the Amazon River.
Abu Dhabi is one of the seven emirates that constitute the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Video is brought to us by the European Space Agency (ESA).
Covering an area of approximately 67 000 sq km, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi is the largest emirate in the UAE – accounting for around 87% of the total land area of the federation. Abu Dhabi has around 200 islands lying along its 700 km long coastline.
The city of Abu Dhabi, after which the emirate is named, is located on an island in the Persian Gulf and can be seen slightly below the centre of the image. Abu Dhabi is the capital and the second-most populous city of the UAE – after Dubai. The city is directly connected to the mainland by three bridges: Maqta, Mussafah and Sheikh Zayed.
Just east of the city lies the Mangrove National Park, visible as a dark green patch of land. The protected area is around 20 sq km and includes mangrove forests, salt marshes, mudflats and is home to more than 60 bird species.
The waters surrounding Abu Dhabi are said to hold the world’s largest population of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins. The lighter aqua colours are shallow waters, which contrast with the dark coloured waters of the Gulf.
More at the ESA.
This video from space of San Francisco Bay, California is brought to us by the European Space Agency (ESA).
San Francisco Bay, almost 100 km in length, is a shallow estuary surrounded by the San Francisco Bay Area – an extensive metropolitan region that is dominated by large cities such as San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. The densely populated urban areas around the bay contrast strongly with the surrounding green forest and park areas.
In the upper right of the image, the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers is visible – with the brown, sediment-filled water flowing down into San Pablo Bay. Here, the murky waters mix before flowing into the larger bay area, which is connected to the Pacific Ocean via the Golden Gate strait. A large sediment plume can be seen travelling westward into the Pacific in the left of the image.
The Golden Gate Bridge, around 2.7 km long, is visible crossing the opening of the bay into the Pacific Ocean between Marin County and the city of San Francisco – which can be seen at the tip of the southern peninsula in the centre of the image. Treasure, Angel and Alcatraz islands can be seen sticking out of the waters of the bay, with several bridges connecting its east and west shores. Several boats are also visible.
The bright green and yellow colours in the bottom right of the image are salt ponds and are part of the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge. Covering an area of around 120 sq km, the refuge contains salt marsh, mudflat and vernal pool habitats for millions of migratory birds and endangered species.
[Yesterday] at its Texas launch facility, Blue Origin performed its most critical test to date. It performed a live separation test of its crew capsule from the rocket booster and everything performed as expected. The crew capsule fired its escape motor at the right time, sending the capsule higher than it ever has gone before. This successful test is a huge milestone for Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, which previously stated that if the test went well it could put the rocket company in position to become operational by the end of the year.
The New Shepard is designed to autonomously fly six passengers more than 62 miles (100 km) above Earth into suborbital space, high enough to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the planet before the pressurized capsule returns to earth under parachutes.