Australia from Space

Blue Whale

This image is supposably showcasing the massive typhoon haiyan from space but the bit in Australia looks fake to me.

a combination of images from Japanese and European weather satellites, also on Nov. 7, 2013, at 13:00 UTC, around local midnight. These satellites are in geostationary orbits, 36,000 km (22,000 miles) above the Earth’s surface, and provide a much broader view. You can see Haiyan to the right, the city lights of the Philippines almost underneath it. Lights from China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and India are to the west, and Australia is far to the south.

But... what is all those lights in the mid west desert of Australia - surely this bit is fake!?


Typhoon Haiyan by EUMETSAT, on Flickr

More about the monster storm here in case your wondering

s.c

Bush fires?

catbear

Hoons doing burnouts in their $80,000 utes!

rightyabe

Bush fires.

I remember last year there was a few photos of oz from space and I thought they have to be fake. But apparently that actual photo is a combination of photos merged together. si the time between the fist and last pic means that it can appear to be 1 big fire but its just the combined movement of the fire over a period of time.

Sundy

There not bush fires, if that much of Australia was on fire it would be in the news and its not a time lapse, all the pictures come from around midnight on Nov 7.

rightyabe

Sundy wrote: »

There not bush fires, if that much of Australia was on fire it would be in the news and its not a time lapse, all the pictures come from around midnight on Nov 7.

Sorry but it is. There is bushfires all the time in remote Australia that are never seen, lightning starts most of them and they burn for days if not weeks..

Sundy

rightyabe wrote: »

Sorry but it is. There is bushfires all the time in remote Australia that are never seen, lightning starts most of them and they burn for days if not weeks..

Yeah your right they are. I think their size is being exaggerated by something though. The time lapse explanation would make sense only for all the pictures are supposedly within a short time of each other.

woolymammoth

This is old news.. I remember reading about it ages ago. Here's an article about it: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-20/interactive-nasa-sheds-light-on-mystery-wa-lights/4437664

Blue Whale

woolymammoth wrote: »

This is old news.. I remember reading about it ages ago. Here's an article about it: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-20/interactive-nasa-sheds-light-on-mystery-wa-lights/4437664

I wonder over how long the pictures were taking. "Multi-day" pictures is the most information I can get from that article.

And as for the original typhoon picture in the OP, they must of just used old photos of Australia for this image.

irishmover

Blue Whale wrote: »

I wonder over how long the pictures were taking. "Multi-day" pictures is the most information I can get from that article.

And as for the original typhoon picture in the OP, they must of just used old photos of Australia for this image.

Australia is far off to the right corner of the imagery. The further away from the centre of the image the more distortion can occur. That may be a contributing factor in why we're seeing so many lights along with the multi day theory.

Edit: It's old imagery and they state that in the citation section in bottom left corner. Imagery we're discussing is found here:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NPP/news/earth-at-night.html

This new global view and animation of Earth's city lights is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite. The data was acquired over nine days in April 2012 and 13 days in October 2012. It took 312 orbits to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth's land surface and islands. This new data was then mapped over existing Blue Marble imagery of Earth to provide a realistic view of the planet.

http://sentinel.ga.gov.au/acres/sentinel/disclaimer.shtml

The bushfire theory is possible, especially if the shots are taken over time. Have a look at the link above. Bushfires are a regular thing in the northern outback. So much so that for work I created a live map that pulls down this data as a WMS and also contains info on areas we work in. Next step is to marry it up with live tracking we have on our work vehicles.

This website marks them down as fires anyway:

http://spaceinfo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/australiafires_575.jpg

catbear

I'm been told that lightening is a major cause of bushfire in the central outback.

irishmover

catbear wrote: »

I'm been told that lightening is a major cause of bushfire in the central outback.

Not even but yes it is one. When I worked in the desert I would drive from site to the same place as I was the day before to find the shrubs, trees and ground burnt.

What I was told was that if there are extremely dry days the trees dry out so much that with enough friction from the wind they ignite themselves. I didn't believe it myself until I witnessed it first hand. Wish I had my camera back then!

catbear

irishmover wrote: »

What I was told was that if there are extremely dry days the trees dry out so much that with enough friction from the wind they ignite themselves.

:eek: