This week's Earth from Space feature presents a striking false-color image of Super Typhoon Champi, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite on October 21, 2026. The photograph depicts the storm hovering off the coastlines of Taiwan and the Philippines, showcasing an eye approximately 50 km wide. The visual presentation utilizes colors reminiscent of Halloween imagery, such as ghouls and pumpkins, to highlight the monster storm's features.
Champi stands as the most powerful tropical cyclone recorded so far this year, boasting maximum sustained winds of 296 km per hour. The data was gathered by the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer aboard Sentinel-3, which measured radiance in thermal infrared wavelengths to infer brightness temperatures for cloud tops, sea surfaces, and land areas visible on the left side of the frame.
In this visualization, distinct colors represent varying brightness temperatures to enhance visual impact. The green, white, and light grey zones indicate cold clouds at the storm's center where temperatures drop as low as -70 °C. Purple areas denote other cloud formations with temperatures ranging between -30 °C and -15 °C, while orange sections represent ocean and land surfaces averaging around 25 °C.
The image clearly illustrates the meteorological mechanism driving the typhoon: cold clouds moving over warm ocean waters. The powerful system resulted in serious flooding and damage across eastern Taiwan, with waves reaching heights of up to 10 meters near the storm's center.
Sources: ESA Space News.