The Cloud Layer
Every cloud on Earth, as five weather satellites saw it, ten minutes at a time.
Five satellites hang over the equator, each watching its side of the planet and looking again every ten minutes. Their views are joined into one sky, and each cloud is set back over the ground it is really above.
The land is this week's clearest look from the same satellites. Day, dusk and night, the glint on the sea and the shadows of the clouds follow the Sun of that moment. The stars and the Moon are where they were.
The poles stay open: from the equator the satellites see them too obliquely. Night cloud is lit softly so it can be followed. The globe runs 75 minutes behind now, when the last of the data is shared.
With gratitude to the people who build, fly and share these instruments: NOAA (GOES-East and GOES-West), JAXA (Himawari-9), EUMETSAT (MTG-I1 and Meteosat-9), and NASA (Blue Marble, VIIRS, the CGI Moon Kit). Stars from the Yale Bright Star Catalogue. Milky Way by ESO/S. Brunier, CC BY 4.0.
Derek Lomas · j.d.lomas@tudelft.nl · dereklomas.me