Astonishing imagery of the Earth from space

From the New York Times:

A sense of perspective is unavoidable from 22,000 miles out. Looking down at Earth from that distance — almost three times farther than the diameter of the planet itself — allows a view of the globe as a massive organic system, pulsing with continuous movement. Below, images from the Himawari-8 weather satellite’s first official day paint a living portrait of the western Pacific, with Typhoons Chan-hom and Nangka spinning slowly westward.

Locked into a stationary orbit above New Guinea, the satellite takes 144 photographs of the entire planet a day, three times as many as its predecessor. The images show how weather systems evolve and help forecasters develop more nuanced models of Earth’s atmosphere.

This vivid, moving imagery is riveting, breathtaking.