EUMETSAT's latest weather satellite, MSG-4, has unveiled a captivating new view of the Earth, while ESA's Mars Express Orbiter has revealed Mars in never-before-seen detail.
After its launch into orbit on 15 July, the MSG-4 weather satellite has captured its first image of our planet, taken with its Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) instrument.
The satellite, which is operated by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), is designed to provide up-to-date weather coverage over Europe and Africa every fifteen minutes -- and "rapid scan" snapshots of Europe every five.
The images, which captures the Earth in perfect, marble-like precision, proves that MSG-4 is performing as it should be, meaning it's well on its way to becoming fully operational as soon as it's needed to replace one of its predecessors.
Looking further afield, you can now also take a flying tour across Mars's Atlantis Chaos region. Located in the Atlantis basin -- a four billion-year-old crater with edges that have slowly eroded -- the region is thought to have once been part of the Red Planet's Eridania lake.
In the video, made up of images snapped by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) aboard ESA's Mars Express orbiter in 2008, 2009 and 2014, you can glimpse Atlantis Chaos's sprawling peaks and sheer cliffs, along with craters and surface rifts that may have been caused by past tectonic activity.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
