Since late 2014, Japan�s Himawari 8 weather satellite has been in stationary orbit above New Guinea, 22,000 miles out (Earth�s average diameter is 7,918 miles). It shoots one photo of Earth every 10 minutes, capturing 144 pictures of our planet over the course of a day.
When combined, the photos form a gorgeous time-lapse video showing the passing of a day on Earth. In the 20-second video above, the Sun�s reflection can be seen in the daylight that moves across the surface of the globe.
Australia is visible through a gap in the clouds at the bottom of the frame, and above it, Typhoons Chan-hom and Nangka can be seen moving towards Asia earlier this month.
The Himawari 8 website began publishing these day-lapses of Earth on July 7th, 2015. You can also find a page that shows the latest live photos being beamed down from the satellite.
The New York Times reports that NASA is planning to launch a similar satellite in March 2016 to point a camera at weather systems moving toward the United States.
Started out doing photography at the age of 6 using an uncle's old 1940 kodak brownie box camera. At 15 years of age, I decided to buy my very own 1975 Praktica SLR camera. I now shoot with a Nikon D850. I do unpaid TFP and commercial paid work.