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This beautiful orange swirl looks like it could be an oil painting—but it is in fact a low pressure system currently floating above the Southern Ocean, just west of Australia.
The image was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra Satellite just yesterday. The orange hues are actually false color—MODIS detects far more of the electromagnetic spectrum that just visible light, and that’s the best way to display its data—but that doesn’t detract from the raw beauty of the image. [NASA via Discover]
Image by NASA Worldview
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“False color”… Soooo… It actually *is* a painting.
I think I must be an art ludite or something. First it’s a stack of paper cut out to different sizes (big woop, I did that in Nursery) and now it’s a swirl with an orangey yellow tinge to it (I do that after a particularly strong curry).
Hopefully not on the same scale!