• Politics: The Prime Minister of Australia admits errors in the management of the fires that already add 27 dead
  • Oceania: Fires devastate more than half a million hectares in Australia

Observations with the NOAA / NASA Suomi NPP satellite have tracked the movement of smoke from Australian fires around the world, showing that Earth has already circumnavigated.

In an image created from the data collected by the OMPS instrument ( Nzone Mapper of Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite) on board the satellite, a black circle shows the smoke that had been traced from its origins returning to the eastern region of Australia afterwards having traveled around the world.

The red circle shows the "newly formed" (or current) smoke that has just been emitted by the fires. The green circle shows an intense dust storm. The data corresponds to January 13.

Suomi NPP carries five scientific instruments and is the first satellite mission for a wide range of terrestrial, oceanic and atmospheric measurements for the science of the terrestrial system.

Colin Seftor, a research scientist at NOAA / NASA, explained that "the ultraviolet radiation (UV) index has a characteristic that is particularly suitable for identifying and tracking smoke from incense. The larger the plume of smoke, the greater the value of the ultraviolet index. Values ​​above 10 are often associated with such events. Aerosol index values ​​produced by some of the Australian fires have rivaled the largest values ​​ever recorded . "

The smoke is expected to make at least one complete circuit around the world, returning once more to the skies over Australia.

This satellite observes the Earth's surface twice every 24-hour day , once in the daylight and once at night. In its orbit, Suomi NPP flies 824 kilometers above the surface in a polar orbit, circling around the planet about 14 times a day. The satellite sends its data once in orbit to the ground station in Svalbard, Norway, and continuously to local direct transmission users.

"A scary image"

A dense cloud of smoke that rises to the sky, this is how the fires that devastate Australia are seen from the International Space Station (ISS) in the photographs taken by the Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano , who said he had never seen a fire of a "magnitude so scary . "

"Fires in Australia: lives, hopes, dreams in ashes" the current commander of the Station wrote on his Twitter with four images taken on the 12th , one of which was published on Tuesday by the European Space Agency (ESA).

That photograph was taken when the Station was flying over Fraser Range, in Western Australia, near the Dunes Nature Reserve .

Parmitano uploaded to his social network two other images, in one of which you can see the smoke and a part of the ISS. "An immense cloud of ash covers Australia as we fly into the sunset," he wrote.

The astronaut said - quoted by ESA - that when talking to his crewmates they realized that none of them "had ever seen a fire of such a terrifying magnitude."

This new vision of fires joins the images taken by satellites that show smoke and pollution and those made from the ground that represent "apocalyptic red skies , " says ESA on its website and adds that "you cannot deny the devastating effect of fires. "

For the ESA, "if there is a hopeful side of the fires, it is the greater awareness and calls for urgent action on climate change that continues to destroy the planet."

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