Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) captured this image on April 8, 2012 at 11:09 GMT. The image was transmitted in X-band to the Santa Maria station in the Azores, Portugal, operated by Edisoft. It shows Spain’s Canary Islands. It is the last Envisat data transmitted via X-band before the communication anomaly.
The Envisat satellite launched in 2002 and unexpectedly went silent in April 2012. The satellte, however, was originally built to last five years - a mission which it completed successfully. See some of Envisat's amazing photos, including its last view of Earth we know of.
On April 15, 2012, the French space agency CNES rotated the Pleiades Earth observation satellite to capture this image of Envisat. At a distance of about 100 km, Envisat’s main body, solar panel and radar antenna were visible.
This radar image showing the Envisat satellite in orbit was produced by the ground-based tracking and imaging radar, TIRA, of the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques in Wachtberg, Germany, on April 10, 2012.
Envisat’s Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) captured this image on April 8, 2012. The image, shows Portugal and Spain. It is the last Envisat data transmitted via Ka-band before the communication anomaly affected the Envisat satellite.
An algae bloom in the shape of a figure 8 in the south Atlantic Ocean.
Frozen lakes dotting the Tibetan Plateau in Central Asia are pictured in this image, acquired on Jan. 30, 2012 by ESA’s Envisat satellite. Part of the Himalayan mountain range is visible in the lower left corner of the image. To the northwest, part of the Kunlun mountains are visible, separating the plateau from the Tarim Basin.
The snow-kissed Alps that stretch across France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria and Slovenia are captured in this Envisat image, acquired on Jan.16, 2012.
The Sikhote–Alin mountain range in Russia’s Far East is pictured in this image, acquired on Jan. 27, 2012 . In the image, snow-covered Khanka Lake, the Sea of Japan and Russia's largest island, Sakhalin, are all visible.
This image from the Envisat satellite is dominated by the Indonesian islands of Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa. It's a compilation of three passes by Envisat’s radar on June 20, Aug. 19 and Dec. 27, 2011.
Spitsbergen, Norway’s largest island, is pictured in this image, acquired on Sep. 6, 2011 by Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR). Bordered by the Arctic Ocean to its north and the Greenland Sea to its west, Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago.
This Envisat image, acquired on Oct. 28, 2011, shows central Saudi Arabia on the arid Arabian Peninsula. The dark circle near the centre of the image is the capital city of Riyadh, the nation’s legislative, financial administrative, diplomatic and commercial hub.
The subtropical Canary Islands off Africa’s west coast are pictured in this image, acquired on Sep. 8, 2011. The Portuguese archipelago, Madeira, lies to the northwest.
This Envisat image, acquired on June 15, 2011, shows the volcanic island of Guadalupe peeking through the clouds. The island lies in the Pacific Ocean around 250 km off the west coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula.
This Envisat image features Alaska’s Yukon Delta, where the Yukon River fans out into a labyrinth of distributaries before emptying into the Bering Sea. This image was created by combining three Envisat images (Nov. 19, 2009, April 8, 2010 and May 13, 2010) over the same area.
Captured by Envisat’s MERIS instrument on Feb. 13, this image shows an unusual view of Italy: almost all of the country is covered with snow.
The first MERIS observation captured the huge phytoplankton patch produced by the 'upwelling' mechanism along the west coast of Africa near Mauritania. The unprecedented resolution of MERIS allows such fine-scale structures to be detected. The image was acquired on March 22, 2002.
Envisat's MERIS instrument photographed swirling cloud formations over the Canary Islands, June 6, 2010.
Envisat's MERIS instrument photographed a plume of smoke from an oil depot fire, London, England, on December 11, 2005.
Envisat's ASAR instrument recorded this image of the Hawaiian Islands during 2006/2008.
Envisat's ASAR instrument recorded this image of an Antarctica ice shelf on March 5, 2011.
Envisat's ASAR instrument recorded this image of volcanic uplift in Kenya during 2004/2006.
