{"id":287270,"date":"2026-01-16T09:07:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/287270\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T09:07:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:07:15","slug":"satellites-spy-raging-bushfires-in-australia-photo-of-the-day-for-jan-15-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/287270\/","title":{"rendered":"Satellites spy raging bushfires in Australia photo of the day for Jan. 15, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

While wildfires happen at different times across the globe, they do all have one thing in common: they can be absolutely devastating.<\/p>\n

One of the clearest ways to grasp the full impact these events have is to see them from space, and that’s exactly what Europe’s Copernicus program<\/a> is built to do: deliver detailed and frequently updated images of Earth’s land and coasts that can be used to influence policies. To do this, the program uses Sentinel satellites<\/a>, which zip around Earth, capturing various breathtaking, and heartbreaking, views from low Earth orbit.<\/a><\/p>\n

What is it?<\/p>\n

Sentinel-2 consists of a trio (or “constellation”) of Earth-observation satellites<\/a>, each carrying a high-resolution multi-spectral camera that records reflected light in 13 spectral bands. Those bands include visible wavelengths (what we can see) but also near-infrared and short-wave infrared, which are especially helpful for measuring vegetation condition, soil and moisture difference and fire impacts.<\/p>\n

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On Jan. 9, 2026, a Sentinel-2 satellite captured a devastating scene of the bushfires in Australia, seeing dark burn scars where the fire had already burned through the landscape. According to the Copernicus website,<\/a> these uncontrolled fires have led to the closure of hundreds of schools and the evacuations of entire communities, resulting in thousands of people living without electricity.<\/p>\n

Where is it?<\/p>\n

This image was taken from low Earth orbit, showing an area south of Longwood in northern Victoria, Australia.<\/p>\n

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The uncontrolled bushfires have displaced thousands of people in the state of Victoria. (Image credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery)Why is it amazing?<\/p>\n

Thanks to the Sentinel-2 imagery, analysts can delineate burned area boundaries, estimate how much land has been affected and update those estimates as new images arrive. The Copernicus program notes<\/a> that Sentinel-2 plays a role in mapping burned areas and assessing damage to support emergency response and recovery planning.<\/p>\n

With its near-infrared and short-wave infrared bands, Sentinel-2 can also help highlight changes in vegetation and charred ground, which may be harder to spot with ordinary cameras but can be key in creating standard fire-severity indicators and separating smoke from clouds, along with bare soil from burn scars.<\/p>\n

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n

The Earth-scanning satellites can further track the long-term effects of these fires. After the flames go out, the hard work is recovering the landscape: stabilizing soils, protecting waterways, restoring habitats and understanding how nature bounces back. Sentinel-2’s repeated scanning can help study the same area over longer periods of time to track regeneration and land-cover change.<\/p>\n

Want to learn more?<\/p>\n

You can learn more about wildfires<\/a> and Earth-observing satellites.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While wildfires happen at different times across the globe, they do all have one thing in common: they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[18,19,17,133,451],"class_list":{"0":"post-287270","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115903990528133613","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}