This year’s membership cards feature a spectacular satellite image of the Occidental Glacier in Bernardo O’Higgins National Park, Chile.
The image was captured by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2A satellite and is shown as a false colour composite. The image was produced by the Satellite Applications Catapult.
Sentinel-2 is a land monitoring mission which, following the launch of the second satellite in 2017, will provide global coverage of the Earth’s land surface every five days. Imagery is acquired across 12 spectral wavebands within the visible (true colour), near-infrared (NIR) and shortwave infrared (SWIR) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
For the membership card image, a 3-band false colour composite using bands 11 (SWIR), 8 (NIR) and 4 (Red) was used to highlight glacial features. The image was selected because it is both visually appealing and also showcases the wide range of environmental monitoring opportunities that the use and analysis of remotely sensed data can provide.