Proba-V image of South Korea

A false-colour image of Pyeongchang county and surrounding territory in South Korea – currently hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics.

This is a view of the northern part of the country, with vegetation in red and built-up areas seen in grey, including capital city Seoul, astride the banks of the Hangang River, seen left. Pyeongchang county is located towards the east coast. Mountainous regions are seen dusted with snow.

The Winter Olympics run from 8 to 25 February. By adding four new disciplines, this international event is the first Winter Games to extend over 100 medals, spread across 15 sports.

Launched on 7 May 2013, Proba-V is a miniaturised ESA satellite tasked with a full-scale mission: to map land cover and vegetation growth across the entire planet every two days.

Its main camera’s continent-spanning 2250 km swath width collects light in the blue, red, near-infrared and mid-infrared wavebands at 300 m resolution and down to 100 m resolution in its central field of view.

VITO Remote Sensing in Belgium processes and then distributes Proba-V data to users worldwide. An online image gallery highlights some of the mission’s most striking images so far, including views of storms, fires and deforestation.

This 300 m-resolution image was acquired on 21 January 2018.