They are some of the most fascinating images yet taken of Earth. Clearly showing various land colors according to terrain and finely detailing the height outlines of mountains, they are incredibly beautiful to look at.
But they are also unique and quite different to the images of our planet captured by numerous NASA missions over the years.
These images were not taken by NASA, but by an orbiting Russian spacecraft, and the reason for the difference in Earth’s appearance can be attributed to a different method of interpreting data being beamed back, the British Daily Mail newspaper reported Thursday.
The weather satellite Elektro-L sends images to ground control every 30 minutes, but is capable of mailing images every 10 minutes.
Launched in January, it is currently 36,000km …