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Images transmitted by a newly-launched Russian satellite have revealed our planet as it has never been seen before.
The images from weather-satellite Elektro-L were leaked to the press.
The satellite was launched in January with a Zenit rocket and is currently stationed 36,000 kilometers above the equator.
It sends images to ground control every 30 minutes.
The resolution of the pictures it is transmitting is higher than anything seen before.
Elektro-L is a Russian Satellite similar to GOES (the satellites that provide the cloud image loops shown on the news every night). The images posted by Gizmodo are a combination of visible and near-infrared wavelengths, so they show the Earth in a way not visible to human eyes (vegetation looks red, for example). They’re not any better or worse than NASA images, but they show different things.
In the case of Elektro-L, the payload is a 1km-per-pixel resolution camera for the visible spectrum and a 4km-per-pixel one for infrared.
Russian satellite pictures Earth in highest resolution ever