A Decade Of Observing Earth From Space Has Given Us These Breathtaking Views [PHOTOS]

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/earths-most-breathtaking-vistas-from-space-photos-2013-10

The European Space Agency may never have had the glamor of the Apollo missions or space shuttle launches, but they've quietly launched some of the most advanced Earth observation satellites around.

The ESA's Envistat satellite was the largest Earth observation satellite ever built.

Since 2002, it has circled the Earth, collecting invaluable information on our environment and the advancing danger of climate change. Contact with Envistat was suddenly lost in April 2012, but the wealth of information it collected remains.

Every week, the European Space Agency releases a new satellite image taken by Envistat and other Earth-observation satellites launched by ESA and other space agencies. They show incredible places on Earth, from the Sahara Desert to volcanoes in the Congo, in ways we've never seen before.

Clouds sweep across the North Sea in this image from Envistat. Denmark is on the lower right corner and Norway is in the upper center.

This is the Amazon River in the heart of northern Brazil's rainforest. Vegetation has been colored with shades of pink — the darker the color, the denser the vegetation.

This photo of Northern China shows the Yellow River flowing into the Yellow Sea. Beijing and Tanjing are shaded circles in the top-center part of the photo.

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