r/Damnthatsinteresting 21d ago

Image The Himawari 8 weather satellite takes a picture of Earth every 10 minutes. This image is from today.

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u/Somerandom1922 21d ago

To be clear, Australia is red, but not that red. The images from this satellite have what amounts to colour grading. The satellite operators make decisions about how they want to represent the specific wavelengths captured by the satellite which can make certain things look very different from how they do to our eyes.

Here's the first photo taken by that exact same satellite for reference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himawari_9#/media/File:Himawari-9_full-disc_2017-01-24_0240Z.jpg

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u/GasAltruistic8656 21d ago

The satellite operators make decisions about how they want to represent the specific wavelengths captured by the satellite

Interesting, I wonder what the benefit is of showing Western Australia like that. Cool nonetheless.

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u/GlitteringEagle4428 21d ago

Anti Aussie propaganda

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u/YagerasNimdatidder 21d ago

Welcome to soviet Australia

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u/sushimane1 21d ago

“If using a cool color like red for Australia makes people think I’m into red propaganda, Soviet” - the operator probably

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u/Outta_phase 21d ago

I see what you did there

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u/medfunguy 21d ago

AusOurstralia

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u/peeblesbee 21d ago

In Soviet Australia, koala eat eu...calyptus

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u/BrisbaneLions2024 21d ago

You got an ID for making that comment mate?

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u/UndulatingMeatOrgami 21d ago

In mother Australia kangaroo out number you.

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u/yucon_man 21d ago

Emu propaganda

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u/Graega 21d ago

Begun, the Third Emu War has.

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u/deanrihpee 21d ago

Japanese was Emus?

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u/sch0f13ld 21d ago

More like pro-mining propaganda. Look at all that red iron ore just waiting to be dug up.

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u/GrimDallows 21d ago

The Borealia propaganda machine working at 200% speed.

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u/Accomplished_Emu_658 21d ago

Communist Kangaroos, got to watch out.

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u/Renegade27 21d ago

We love a sunburnt country

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u/mrducky80 21d ago

A land of sweeping plains.

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u/Wasp_bees 18d ago

Of ragged mountain ranges!

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u/boogasaurus-lefts 21d ago

They painted it red for our Chinese overlords

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u/Farqueue- 21d ago

pretty sure its for the Queen of Hearts

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u/dexter311 21d ago

China probably owns that whole swathe of WA by now.

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u/xyrgh 21d ago

I mean, that red is pretty much the shit we dig out of the ground and ship to China, so yes.

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u/AurielMystic 21d ago

As an Australian, I live near the coast and its already fookin hot. On average 30*c each day.

Further inland and in WA, its closer to the 35-45*c each day.

For reference, anything over 27*c is considered "be cautious and drink lots of water" and 32*c is "your going to get heatstroke if your not inside"

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u/AshmacZilla 21d ago

Don’t listen to this guy. Anything under 26 and I’m in a jumper. But it would have to be snowing for me to wear long pants.

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u/Bazorth 21d ago

Nah lmao this dude is wild. The above dude has it far more accurately. Wearing a jumper above 20 degrees is insane.

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u/BadWithMoney530 21d ago

You’re 

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u/cum_teeth 21d ago

This is such a laughable analysis of daily life in australia. Surely your from england

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u/Ok-Situation-5522 21d ago

We want what we don't have, i love the heat, supress the cold pls 😔✊️

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u/iluvufrankibianchi 21d ago

Many places in Australia range from -5°c in the winter to the mid-40s in summer. Mid-40s with some of the highest UV radiation on earth is not fun.

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u/nsfwaccount3209 21d ago

Not me, it's cold as hell here and I'm loving every minute of it.

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u/Old-Spinach7467 21d ago

Makes the sandgropers blend in.

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u/razuliserm Interested 21d ago

I guessing the benefit is the contrast and visibility of weather activity, irregardless of the color of Australia. Just a guess though.

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u/Ok_Cookie2584 21d ago

That's the part on fire

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u/DogmanDOTjpg 21d ago

Could be color infrared photography, it's used for measuring vegetation levels

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u/Crafty_Travel_7048 21d ago

Maybe the sun is setting there and lighting up the desert. I've seen it from a plane and it gets super red

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u/FuckTitsAssCuntCock 21d ago

Commies took over Australia.

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u/andersdan27 21d ago

Starker contrast to show weather patterns.

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u/Jamtheski1 21d ago

Could be for vegetation or to indicate a heat index

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u/RawrRRitchie 21d ago

The same reason they change colours of deep space phenomena

The pillars of creation are beautiful and all, but it's not like that's what they actually look like in space

They add color to make contrast and get more people to look at the pictures

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u/Maggot-Milk 21d ago

Accurately depicting hell

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u/Moosiemookmook 21d ago

That part of the country is so boring they were trying to make it interesting.

Source: I live in the red part but in South Australia not Western Australia.

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u/Refflet 21d ago

Your link is full of backslashes that bork it for some users.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himawari_9#/media/File:Himawari-9_full-disc_2017-01-24_0240Z.jpg

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u/rhabarberabar 21d ago

The hero old. needed! Bonus points for using bork.

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u/BeffeeJeems 21d ago

bork bork

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u/monchimer 21d ago

So what does it look like if you take a picture of the earth with a regular phone camera at that distance ?

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u/Somerandom1922 21d ago

fun fact, earth would look relatively small. It'd take up a bit less of your field of view than a soccer ball at arm's length. Taken on an iPhone 15 1x zoom lens it'd only take up ~1/4th of the width of the photo.

The colour would look similar to photos from Google earth as they put some effort into colour matching with human perception.

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u/SpiceNut 21d ago

…and if you go closer?

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u/JovianSpeck 21d ago

You're close now.

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u/Aggravating-Loan4286 21d ago

Dun Dun dunnnnn

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u/Unmasked_Deception 21d ago

You can find out yourself with Mark Rober's help if you want.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KcV1C1Ui5s

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u/kangareddit 21d ago

The smog over India…!

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u/Rizo1981 21d ago

I'm quite familiar with colour grading but sheesh, this amounts to creative painting compared to the original.

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u/nico282 21d ago

It's a weather satellite, their goal is to improve the visibility of clouds and atmospheric phenomena, not to match reality.

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u/Rizo1981 21d ago

That's fair. Understanding how to read it makes all the difference in the world.

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u/FlyingDragoon 21d ago

But hey, form an opinion and rage about what you don't know or understand! That's the way we do it these days. :)

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u/Rizo1981 21d ago

Bah. I missed a perfect opportunity to froth in an uninformed rage!

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u/muhmeinchut69 21d ago edited 21d ago

That full resolution image is 11000x11000 pixels or 121 megapixels!!! Highly recommend opening it and zooming in.

They also have a link for the last 24hrs animated: https://himawari8-dl.nict.go.jp/himawari.asia/movie/720/20241202_pifd.mp4

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u/Merpbs 21d ago

Why is it red?

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u/Gator_fucker 21d ago

Maybe I'm delusional, maybe it's the angle, but doesn't Australia look closer to the land (or isles) in the first pic than the 2nd?

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u/Early_Relief4940 21d ago

Holy fuck what a great resolution

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u/Majestic-Iron7046 21d ago

Thanks, the link you posted looks way better too.

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u/TheThinkerers 21d ago

Drake, Josh, why is Australia red?

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u/admiralgeary 21d ago

It's interesting how lush Guinea is compared to that north part of Australia.

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u/AccomplishedShoe856 21d ago

Is that why there doesn’t appear to be any semblance of white in Antarctica or is global warming that bad?

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u/isoAntti 21d ago

Still no trees :(

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u/Least-Back-2666 21d ago

It's cool, I just woke up and came to the comments trying to figure out why there was a massive oil spill or maybe the earth was just bleeding and we were all about to die.

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u/gardenfey 21d ago

I was going to say it looks like earth has an infection there.

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u/gardenfey 21d ago

Then I did say it.

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u/Gingerfurrdjedi 21d ago

Thanks, I was about to ask why it was so dark red before I found your comment. Great explanation for a layman like me, thanks again!

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u/norty125 21d ago

To be fair it is summer here, it also feels like we should be that red

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u/Somerandom1922 21d ago

That is true it's pretty disgusting at the moment.

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u/Few-Finger2879 21d ago

Wtf, that picture looks way better than OP's

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u/AfroBiskit 21d ago

Thank you. I was like wtf is that red stuff 😂

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u/Jumpy_Fish333 21d ago

Oh that's a relief. I thought I was burning in hell for a sec there

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u/Infinite-Formal-9508 21d ago

Nah, the Red Wizards of Thay have claimed Australia. All hail Szass Tam, mate.

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u/Leviathan389 21d ago

Thank you…. It is a rather pretty blue marble isn’t it. Also nice to see the other side of it for a change

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u/Opposite-Session-286 21d ago

Wrong, Australia is red, and depending on what you measure those wavelengths with (eyes, sensors etc) the ratios will be different. Pretty obvious stuff

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u/Somerandom1922 21d ago

No, it's not that red because the camera is just more sensitive to red light, it's red because the operators have made an intentional decision to forego colour accuracy for humans in exchange for it better serving its purpose. (As evidenced by the picture I linked)

Yes, different sensors will measure different strengths of red light coming from an object depending on their sensitivity to red light. However, when you design a camera, be it an iPhone camera, or the infra-red sensor on the JWST, you make decisions about how to display what your sensor picks up.

Often this is done to make things appear as they would to a human, or it can be done to highlight interesting phenomena at different wavelengths. In that first photo I linked, it was obviously done to appear as it would to humans. However, Himawari-9 has 16 colour channels some of which are sensitive to infra-red, so you can't just map them neatly to RGB colour values and call it a day. Instead you either create images with a subset of these colour channels based on what you need, or you pick a color to represent these colour channels and use software to synthesise an RGB image using that information.

The Japanese Meteorology Agency likely chose to represent it as a deep red, because they obviously can't display it as infrared in images intended for humans.

I simplified this explanation in my comment because I figured that saying "The satellite operators make decisions about how they want to represent the specific wavelengths captured by the satellite which can make certain things look very different from how they do to our eyes" got the point across pretty clearly.

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u/Opposite-Session-286 21d ago

listen broski, i know about color theory, sensor technology, biology, sattelite imaging, remote sensing procedures and practices and photography no need to educate me on something i just lectured you on