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SPACE — The European Space Agency highlighted Salt Lake City in its "Earth from Space" series on Friday.
The video shows a photo of Salt Lake City and the Great Salt Lake taken from the Sentinel-2A spacecraft back on Aug. 20, 2015. The ESA has also highlighted regions like Egypt and Spain.
The Sentinel-2A was launched in June of 2015 and is used to "monitor agriculture, forests, land-use change, land-cover change; mapping biophysical variables such as leaf chlorophyll content, leaf water content, leaf area index; monitoring coastal and inland waters; risk mapping and disaster mapping" according to the ESA website.
The video discusses the Great Salt Lake, mentioning how it "contributes an estimated $1.3 billion annually to Utah's economy, comprising the harvesting of brine shrimp, industry in mineral extraction, and recreation."
It also mentions the causeway that spans the lake, causing the northern end of the lake to become more saline due to circulation issues.
The varying shades of red in the photo show "how sensitive the multispectral instrument on Sentinel-2A is to differences in chlorophyll content, providing key information on vegetation health," according to the video.
For more Earth from Space videos, visit the ESA YouTube channel.
