There was a time when the stars were everything to man. The night sky represented not only the shelter of the night but a fear of the future, a prayer, an inspiration for art and science, a guide for sailors …
With the passage of time, we went from fearing the phenomena that we contemplated in the sky (such as the appearance of a comet) to understanding them and learning a little more about the universe that surrounds us.
Now, the multiple satellites that surround the Earth are responsible not only for monitoring the planet’s water, floods or earthquakes, but also for sending us spectacular snapshots of the most diverse corners of our planet in a privileged view, just like astronauts do. aboard the International Space Station that, day after day, give us a particular view from the spacecraft that is located at an altitude of 400,000 kilometers.
Taking into account that the ISS orbits at a speed of almost 28,000 km / h, allowing it to go around the planet in 90 minutes , we are not surprised that with the up to 15 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours that astronauts can contemplate, they refer us so often such privileged perspectives.
In this collection of images of the Earth seen from space, we will thus contemplate both photographs taken by the astronauts themselves aboard the International Space Station, as well as by artificial satellites such as those of the Copernicus program (of the thousands that are orbiting the Earth that can tell us from where we are in the world (GPS), collect scientific data or predict the weather.
The Sentinel 2A satellite, for example, one of the ones we will see the most in snapshots, offers high-resolution images of the entire planet. From an orbit 786 kilometers from Earth, Sentinel 2A covers the entire planet every 10 days.
The Sentinel 3A satellite is the watchdog of the oceans. With an accuracy of up to 2 centimeters, the satellite predicts natural disasters caused, for example, by a tsunami, by detecting floods in sea level.
And like these, many others that offer us a particular vision of our home.
“We only have one life to enjoy this wonderful Universe, and that is why I am enormously grateful,” says Stephen Hawking. So let’s enjoy the snapshots.
