Daily Earth Pulse September 06, 2025 – Satellite Imagery
A curated glimpse of our planet’s health, captured from a million miles away.
Published on: September 06, 2025
Every day, we bring you stunning images of Earth from two remarkable satellites: NASA’s EPIC camera on the DSCOVR satellite, and Japan’s Himawari-8 operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). EPIC captures natural-color images from a million miles away, giving us a full view of Earth and helping track things like clouds, sunlight, and air quality. Himawari-8, orbiting above the Asia-Pacific, sends high-resolution snapshots every 10 minutes: revealing weather patterns, forest cover, and more in near real-time. At I Hug Trees, we share these visuals in a way that’s easy to understand and connect with: no jargon, just the story of our planet, told through light and color.
Source :
Meteorological Satellite Center of JMA website
“Chart/picture names” (from the
Meteorological Satellite Center of JMA website
)
In cases where the inclusion of 1), 2), and 3) above is impractical, the following three organization names and/or their abbreviations should be listed as a minimum:
Japan Meteorological Agency – JMA
NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service – NOAA/NESDIS
Colorado State University-CIRA – CSU/CIRA
Source : Images and data courtesy of NASA EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera) on the DSCOVR satellite.
Himawari satellite image, True Color Composite – Near-natural Earth appearance.
This image blends visible red, green, and blue bands to reproduce Earth as the human eye might see from space. It’s great for spotting clouds, ocean color changes, and large-scale weather. Expect bright white clouds, blue oceans, and the earthy browns and greens of land.
Publication Date: September 06, 2025
Himawari satellite image, Air Mass RGB Composite – Climate pattern monitoring, air masses, cyclones.
This derived image helps meteorologists distinguish different air masses. Green and orange tones show moist areas, while dark reds or blues highlight dry, stratospheric air. Excellent for understanding cyclones, jet streams, and frontal systems.
Publication Date: September 06, 2025
Himawari satellite image, Infrared Band 13 – Shows heat and cloud temperatures.
This thermal infrared band detects surface and cloud-top temperatures, day or night. Bright white or lighter gray usually indicates cold high clouds, which often signal storms. Darker grays or black mean warmer surfaces like ocean or land.
Publication Date: September 06, 2025
Himawari satellite image, Band 8 (Vegetation-Sensitive Visible Band) – Highlights sunlight reflection from vegetation and land surfaces.
Despite the “green band” name, the image appears in shades of gray because it’s a single spectral band. Brighter gray means more sunlight reflected—often from clouds, bare ground, or water surfaces. Darker areas can indicate forests, water, or shadows. The green borders you see are just map overlays and not actual vegetation color. True vegetation “green” comes from composite images, not this single band.
How to read it: Don’t expect actual green color. Instead, look for contrast between land, water, and clouds to infer surface types.
Publication Date: September 06, 2025
Himawari satellite image, Band 7 (Red Visible Band) – Complements RGB composites and surface detection.
This band detects red light reflectance. As a single-band image, it appears grayscale. It’s used in combination with other bands for True Color or Dust RGB imagery. Useful for distinguishing between clouds, land, and water by reflectance brightness.
Publication Date: September 06, 2025
Himawari satellite image, Dust or Aerosol Composite – Highlights dust storms and haze.
This derived RGB image visualizes dust plumes or haze over land and ocean. Different color shades represent various particle sizes and concentrations. Dust RGB helps meteorologists track sandstorms, volcanic ash, or pollution transport.
Publication Date: September 06, 2025
1) True Color Reproduction imagery
True Color Reproduction (TCR) technology enables the display of Earth images taken from space in a way that is familiar to the human eye. The imagery consists of data from three visible bands (Band 1, 2, and 3), one near-infrared band (Band 4), and one infrared band (Band 13). To reproduce colors as seen by the human eye, RGB signals observed by AHI are converted into CIE XYZ values and reconverted into RGB signals for output devices compliant with sRGB (an international standard for RGB color space) (Murata et al., 2018). In this process, as an alternative to the bi-spectral hybrid green method outlined by Miller et al. (2016), the green band is optimally adjusted using Band 2, 3, and 4. To make the imagery more vivid, atmospheric correction (Rayleigh correction, Miller et al., 2016) is also applied to AHI Bands 1–4. Software for this purpose was provided by the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) established by NOAA/NESDIS and Colorado State University in United States of America.
2) Acknowledgement
The imagery was developed on the basis of collaboration between the JMA Meteorological Satellite Center and the NOAA/NESDIS/STAR GOES-R Algorithm Working Group imagery team. We would like to acknowledge them for the collaboration and their permission to use the software.
3) Reference
Murata, H., K. Saitoh, Y. Sumida, 2018: True color imagery rendering for Himawari-8 with a color reproduction approach based on the CIE XYZ color system. J. Meteor. Soc. Japan. doi: 10.2151/jmsj.2018-049
Miller, S., T. Schmit, C. Seaman, D. Lindsey, M. Gunshor, R. Kohrs, Y. Sumida, and D. Hillger, 2016: A Sight for Sore Eyes – The Return of True Color to Geostationary Satellites. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00154.1
Organization names and abbreviations
In cases where the inclusion of 1), 2), and 3) above is impractical, the following three organization names and/or their abbreviations should be listed as a minimum:
Japan Meteorological Agency – JMA
NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service – NOAA/NESDIS
Colorado State University-CIRA – CSU/CIRA