Electro-L's Fully Lit View of Planet Earth at the Autumnal Equinox

Here's a fantastic view of our home planet taken by the Russian weather satellite Electro-L. And while Elektro-L can take gigantic photographs of the entire planet every 30 minutes, it only can get a fully-lit view like this just twice a year -- at the spring and autumn equinoxes. This image was taken during the autumnal equinox on September 22, 2013.

Below is an animated gif of the view, going from day to night.

[caption id="attachment_105001" align="aligncenter" width="500"]

Animation of the Electro-L satellite's view of Earth on September 22, 2013. Credit: Roscosmos / NTSOMZ / SRC "Planeta" / zelenyikot.livejournal.com[/caption]

Elektro-L orbits Earth in a geostationary orbit 36,000 kilometers above the equator, and with the Sun exactly behind the satellite on the equinox -- the day the north and south poles get the same amount of light -- the entire disk is fully lit.

You can see the typhoon Usagi raging over Southeast Asia, clouds and rain over Russia and swirling clouds in the ocean near Antarctica.

Electro-L was launched in 2011 and is Russia's first geostationary weather satellite. It's a data hog – sending back 2.56 to 16.36 megabits per second, with resolution of 1 kilometer per pixel. You can see the big 5000 x 5000 pixel version at the

Electro-L website.

Thanks to Vitaliy Egorov for sharing this image with UT. He has posted the images at his zelenyikot/livejournal website.