A couple of high-definition cameras recently delivered to the International Space Station are set to start broadcasting near-live images of Earth for free — at a magnification where you can see vehicles and crowds.
The cameras are the property of Urthecast, a Canadian company that plans to start its free broadcast in early 2014. The cameras can see everything from 51 degrees north to 51 degrees south — sorry, Alaska, Scandinavia, and most of the UK, you won't be featured. Everyone else will be able to see their neighborhood drift by in surprisingly high resolution, surprisingly frequently. (The ISS orbits the planet 19 times a day.)
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Everyone else gets the HD treatment, either in still image or video form. The still camera can see to a resolution of five meters per pixel, generating images that are 40 km wide. The video camera can see much more clearly, at a 1-meter resolution. It will take 90-second videos of 150 "places of interest," such as the Eiffel Tower. The videos will be shot at an ultra-crisp 4K resolution.
The file sizes involved are not trivial; Urthecast expects to download 200GB of pictures and videos from the ISS every day. That's why the feed is described as "near live" — there'll likely be a delay of 45 minutes to two hours before the images show up on your screen.
So if the feed is free on Urthecast's website, how does the company expect to make money? With a premium service, of course. Corporate clients might want the cameras pointed at a prospective mining site; the UN has already inked a deal with the company to help document disasters.
Image: NASA, Getty Images News