The key facts
- The image collection was presented on 29 April 2026, on the anniversary of the satellite's launch
- On board is the first P-band synthetic aperture radar in orbit, whose signal passes through foliage
- The images cover Africa, Yamal, Indonesia and Antarctica; the colors in them are conventional
What the satellite revealed
The Biomass satellite, launched to assess carbon stocks primarily in forests, has published a new collection of images of Earth. As Kun.uz reports, the selection was presented on 29 April 2026, marking the anniversary of the satellite's launch. The mission's key feature is the first synthetic aperture radar placed in orbit operating in the P-band: its signal penetrates dense foliage and gathers data on tree trunks and large branches, where most of the forest's carbon is stored.
Images from Africa to Antarctica
One of the images, taken on 20 June 2025, covers areas on the border between Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo: along tributaries in the basins of the Congo, Kasai and Kwango rivers, narrow forest strips stand out, with savannas lying between them. The image from 21 June shows part of the Yamal Peninsula — numerous rounded thermokarst lakes are visible against the tundra. In the image from 22 June, the radar captured branching channels in the delta of the Berau River in the Indonesian part of Kalimantan, amid mangrove forests and swampy tropical vegetation. The fourth image, dated 10 November 2025, covers the Grace Glacier in the western part of Palmer Land in Antarctica, which is moving toward the sea: thin feather-like lines mark crevasses in the ice that arise from internal stresses as the glacier moves over an uneven bed and accelerates toward the coast.
Why the colors are conventional
The colors in all these images do not correspond to the actual appearance of the terrain. During data processing, individual colors are assigned to different characteristics of the reflected radar signal — this method helps distinguish the structure of the land surface and vegetation. Therefore, the green, blue or pink areas in the images indicate not the natural color of the landscape, but the properties of the signal's reflection.
