Jakarta. For those living in the northern hemisphere, the chirping of birds and the recent blooming of flowers are a good sign that spring has arrived. A new video released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows a stunning picture of the changing seasons on Earth.
A high-speed video stitches together footage of our planet’s surface taken daily over the past year. These images were taken using NOAA’s GOES-East satellite, which orbits more than 35,000 km above Earth’s equator.
Because the GOES-East satellite orbits at the same speed as Earth’s rotation, it continuously observes the same region, including most of the Americas, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean.
From its vantage point in space, the satellite tracks the edges that separate day and night on Earth. In the video, you can see how this twilight zone, called the terminator, keeps shifting throughout the year. That’s because our planet is tilted 23.5 degrees on its axis, which impacts the length of day and night.
March 19 marks the official start of spring in the northern hemisphere, the earliest spring has arrived in the US in 128 years. On this day, the Sun shines just above the equator, as the Earth is at a point in its orbit that is not tilted toward or away from the Sun.
Instead, it is perpendicular to the Sun, which is why we experience almost the same hours of day and night. As such, the terminator at this point is straight, and can be thought of as ‘splitting’ our planet into two roughly equal halves.
You can see an example of this in the animated video, consisting of images clicked at 07:50 ET (1150 GMT) every day. In the days following the vernal equinox, our planet slowly begins to shift towards the Sun, which makes the days longer and warmer while the southern hemisphere approaches winter.
Source: https://inet.detik.com/science/d-7269744/citra-satelit-tampilkan-gambaran-menakjubkan-perubahan-musim-di-bumi.
