Because of its large concentration of water, from afar, Earth looks like a large, glistening blue marble. As such, it earned the moniker the ‘blue marble.’ This new image, put together using data from a Russian weather satellite, puts Earth’s more colorful side on display in glorious high definition (HD).
The geostationary satellite that took the multiple images used in this composite — all of which, were taken in 2011, between May 15th and the 19th — is Elektro-L. It’s currently perched 25,000 miles (40,000 km) above Earth’s surface, and while tracing the same path day after day, it takes a high-res image of Earth (each 121 megapixels, or 11,136 x 11,136 pixels]) every half hour.
This image differs from its predecessors in the fact that the artist (James Tyrwhitt-Drake from the University of Victoria) chose to process the lush vegetation in green instead of the usual dull reddish-orange color.
From Tyrwhitt-Drake: