Russian Satellite's 121-Megapixel Image of Earth Is Most Detailed Ever

A new image taken by the Russian weather satellite, Elektro-L is giving us a different perspective of the Earth. Unlike the “Blue Marble” images common to NASA-taken images, where multiple photos are snapped from several flybys stitched together , this 121-megapixel image managed to capture the Earth in a single shot.

Unlike anything we’ve ever seen, the weather satellite’s image used data based on  wavelengths of visible and infrared light—a technique that turns vegetation into a rusty red hue is very prominent in the shot.

The satellite took images from a single point over 35,000 kilometers over the Indian Ocean every 30 minutes, which was then combined to create videos by educator James Drake  to show a day in the life of the planet. He used 350 full-resolution images taken from the Russian Research Center for Earth Operative Monitoring.