This image was taken on 4 January 2013 over central Athens, the capital and largest city of Greece. Near the center of the image is the famous Acropolis of Athens – standing high about the surrounding city as evident by the shadow to the north. Nearby to the southeast is the Temple of Zeus, with shadows from the remaining standing columns stretching across the grass. Further northeast are the National Gardens surrounding the Zappeion building. At the upper left corner of the gardens is the Greek parliament building overlooking Syntagma Square. In the lower-right corner we can see the large, white marble Panathenaic Stadium.
This image is featured on the Earth from Space video program.
Photo credit: European Space Imaging/DigitalGlobe
Kathmandu is the capital of Nepal, with a population of about 2.5 million inhabitants for the greater metropolitan area. The city is the gateway to tourism in Nepal, and is the center of the country's economy, with a literacy rate of 98%. The Kathmandu Valley is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site to recognize the rich number of monuments found in seven different monument zones. The image was acquired March 4, 2009, covers an area of 22 by 22 km, and is located at 27.6 degrees north latitude, 85.3 degrees east longitude.
Photo credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
On September 24 at 11:29 GMT, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck in south-central Pakistan at a relatively shallow depth of 20 kilometers. The earthquake occurred as the result of oblique strike-slip motion, consistent with rupture within the Eurasian tectonic plate. Tremors were felt as far away as New Delhi as well as Karachi in Pakistan. Even though the immediate area to the epicenter is sparsely populated, the majority of houses are of mud brick construction and damage is expected to be extensive. The perspective view, looking to the east, shows the location of the epicenter in Pakistan's Makran fold belt. The image is centered near 27 degrees north latitude, 65.5 degrees east longitude, and was acquired December 13, 2012.
Photo credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
Wildfires have struck the Cordoba province of northern Argentina, caused by high temperatures and strong winds. The large fire, which began on September 9, 2013, spread to more than 37,000 acres (15,000 hectares), destroyed numerous homes, and led to the evacuation of several villages. This image, acquired on September 22, 2013 by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft, shows the extent of the burned area in black. Healthy vegetation, like forests and farm land, is depicted in red. The image covers an area of 19 by 30 miles (30 by 49 kilometers), and is located near 32.1 degrees south latitude, 64.8 degrees west longitude.
Image credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
Deep in the Sahara Desert, the Al Jawf oasis in southeastern Libya is pictured in this image from Japan’s ALOS satellite. The city can be seen in in the upper left corner, while large, irrigated agricultural plots appear like Braille across the image. Between the city and the plots we can see the two parallel runways of the Kufra Airport. The agricultural plots reach up to a kilometer in diameter. Their circular shapes were created by a central-pivot irrigation system, where a long water pipe rotates around a well at the center of each plot. Since the area receives virtually no rainfall, fossil water is pumped from deep underground for irrigation.
Japan’s Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) captured this image on 24 January 2011 with its Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer type-2, which charts land cover and vegetation in the visible and near-infrared spectral bands at a resolution of 10 m. ESA supports ALOS as a Third Party Mission, which means ESA uses its multi-mission ground systems to acquire, process, distribute and archive data from the satellite to its user community.
This image is featured on the Earth from Space video program.
Photo credit: JAXA, ESA
The coast of the United Arab Emirates hosts some of the largest desalination plants in the world. While the water they release may affect the coastal ecosystem, harmful and non-harmful algae blooms can also greatly affect the desalination plants. In particular, the local phenomenon known as the ‘red tide’ has affected desalination plants over the last four years, causing severe damage and sometimes bringing operations to a halt.
Satellite data can be used to identify and monitor red tide events – such as this one spreading from the Gulf of Oman into the Persian Gulf. This image was acquired by Envisat’s MERIS instrument on 22 November 2008.
Image credit: C-wams project, Planetek Hellas/ESA
ESA's Envisat satellite shows ground deformation around a volcano on Fernandina island in the Galápagos islands, following the eruption in April 2009. The caldera is outlined in white, and the lava flow produced by the eruption is also in white, stretching to the coast.
Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar – or InSAR – is a technique where two or more satellite radar images over the same scene are combined to detect slight changes between them. Tiny changes on the ground cause changes in the radar signal and lead to rainbow-colored patterns in the combined image.
Image credit: ESA/M. Bagnardi, University of Miami
In the desert of southern Kuwait, three oil fields spread out across the empty landscape. The country has the world's fifth largest oil reserves, and the 2.8 million people live in the eleventh richest country in the world. The massive oil reserves were discovered in the 1930s, after the country had emerged as an independent sheikhdom under the protection of the British Empire. The image was acquired September 27, 2009, covers an area of 30 x 54 km, and is located at 28.8 degrees north latitude, 47.8 degrees east longitude.
Photo credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
Uluru/Ayers Rock in the Australian outback is featured in this image from the Kompsat-2 satellite. The rock formation is anInselberg– German for ‘island mountain’ – a prominent geological structure that rises from the surrounding plain.
Hundreds of millions of years ago, this part of Australia was a shallow sea. Layers of sandstone settled on the ocean floor and were compressed. These hardened, horizontal layers were uplifted and tilted almost 90º upwards to their present position. The rock eroded slower than the surrounding softer deposits until the monolith stood high above an otherwise flat surface. From this perpendicular angle of the satellite acquisition, we can see those layers that were once horizontal and now appear to cut across the top of the formation.
The Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s Kompsat-2 satellite acquired this image on 15 September 2011. ESA supports Kompsat as a Third Party Mission, meaning it uses its ground infrastructure and expertise to acquire, process and distribute data to users.
This image is featured on the Earth from Space video program.
Photo credit: KARI/ESA
