The Earth Story

Solstice

About 12 hours ago we passed the solstice, the start of Winter for the Northern Hemisphere and Summer in the Southern Hemisphere. I’d have had this post done but my computer was misbehaving.

Anyway, one of my favorite things to check out on the solstice is the view from the Japanese Himawari-8 weather satellite. That satellite, launched a few years ago, sends back HD pictures and video from a geostationary orbit over the Pacific. That means it can watch as the earth rotates into shadow each night. Here’s its lovely solstice view from today – a thin band of light is always present at the south pole, and the north pole never appears.

-JBB

Video credit: https://twitter.com/himawari8bot/status/943853755753263104

Light and Dark

 This video shows one of my new favorite things about the solstice. The Japanese Meteorological Agency’s Himawari-8 weather satellite is in a geostationary position over the Pacific Ocean and eastern parts of Asia, sending down pictures to monitor weather over that part of the planet. In the process, it gets a full frame view of the orb of the Earth, and it automatically shares clips from its cameras online. Here’s the view taken as the sun set yesterday just before the official solstice time – take a look at the poles. The North pole never exits a shadow and the South Pole is a tiny sliver of light that never goes away – the best shot you’ll get of this arrangement for a year. This one also gives some nice sunglint on the sea just before the sun goes down – reflection of the sunlight off the smooth surface of the ocean.

 -JBB

Video Credit: Himawari-8 satellite

https://twitter.com/himawari8bot/status/811255063255650304

The Japanese Himawari 8 Weather satellite took these videos of fires burning in western Siberia. Look how the fires flare up as the sky clears and high pressure moves in. 

This clip from the Japanese Himawari 8 Weather Satellite gives the full-globe view of the Pacific Ocean on Sunday. You can clearly see Tropical Cyclone Winston, fresh off its impact with Fiji, in the lower right.

The final sunset of 2015 as seen over Australia/Japan/the West Pacific/East Asia.

The last sunrise of the year 2015 over the Pacific Ocean, video from the Japanese Himawari-8 Weather Satellite.

I’ve really been enjoying how, in these videos taken close to the winter solstice, you can clearly make out how Antarctica never sees a sunset and the north pole never sees sunrise. 

The Japanese Himawari-8 weather satellite captured this video off the coast of Korea, China, and Japan. Note the “cloud streets” over the water on both sides of the peninsula - linear cloud paths being blown out over the ocean by fairly consistent wind directions. They break up a bit more out to sea as the weather pattern changes, but a really cool shot.

The Japanese Himawari 8 Weather satellite captured this marvelous video example of a cold front moving westward across northern Australia and triggering clouds as it moves.

The Himawari 8 satellite is a Japanese weather satellite placed in stationary orbit around the Earth, looking down on the western Pacific Ocean. It regularly provides absolutely amazing images of this planet. This video captures a sunrise over the Himalayan Mountains and Southeast Asia as seen by the spectral filters on that satellite (visible both before and after sunrise)

I just talked a day or two ago about how imaging Pluto in different wavelengths of light produces different types of information. The new Japanese Himawari-8 weather satellite takes images in 16 different wavelengths. Here they all are in gif form.