Incredible radar images taken by a NASA satellite show smoke from devastating bushfires travelling as far as South America 12,000km away
- Clouds of smoke generated by Australian bushfires can be seen from puterspace
- Satellite footage shows smoke moving east and reaching South America
- Atmospheric models showed large mass travelled 12,000km in less than a week
Devastating bushfires burning across Australia have generated massive clouds of smoke that can be seen from outer space.
Stunning footage from NASA shows how smoke billowing from the country’s east coast has created a cloud bigger than the area of the continental United States.
Images taken by the SuomiNPP satellite in space on New Year’s Day showed the large palls before they merged into an enormous mass that has since travelled across the southern hemisphere.
NASA’s GEOS-5 model, which calculates the density of black carbon particles generated by fires, tracked the trajectory of the smoke cloud over a ten-day period
A sequence beginning on New Year’s Eve shows winds carrying the smoke eastward, moving across New Zealand and the South Pacific, before reaching South America in less than a week
Images taken by the SuomiNPP satellite in space on New Year’s Day show clouds of smoke billowing from bushfire zones all along the eastern coast of Australia
The agency’s GEOS-5 model, which calculates the density of black carbon particles generated by fires, tracked the trajectory of the smoke cloud over a ten-day period.
A sequence beginning on New Year’s Eve shows winds carrying the smoke eastward, moving across New Zealand and the South Pacific, before reaching South America in less than a week.
The cloud travelled over 12,000km, before finally becoming dispelled by wind current, according to Severe-Weather.eu.
Bushfires in Australia have become so intense, clouds of smoke crossed the Tasman Sea and reached New Zealand last week.
South Island settlements were left in a haze last Wednesday after wind pushed smoke from the NSW and Victorian bushfires 2,000 kilometres across the ditch.
A satellite image showed the entire South Island covered in smoke and spreading to the west coast of the North Island.
Another satellite image highlighted bushfire hotspots around Australia
Satellite pictures show smoke blanketing the East Gippsland region of Victoria on Saturday
Images taken in places such as Christchurch, Queenstown, Dunedin, Wanaka and Otago showed a thick haze filling the skies.
On Monday, Canberra’s air quality was the worst of any major city in the world after winds carried in smoke from bushfires in NSW.
The Department of Home Affairs has told staff to stay home after thick bushfire smoke blanketed the country’s capital.
Staff have been told to stay away from Canberra headquarters for 48 hours, but some essential employees will work from other locations.
At least three people were killed on Saturday, while four people missing in Victoria are feared dead. As a fire front approached the town of Batlow (pictured) on Saturday, the sky was filled with orange flames and thick, grey plumes of smoke
This picture taken on December 31, 2019 shows a firefighter hosing down trees and flying embers in an effort to secure nearby houses from bushfires near the town of Nowra on the NSW south coast
The Environment Protection Authority has also recorded ‘very poor’ air quality in Melbourne’s metropolitan area, attributing the smoke to bushfires burning in the state as well as in NSW and Tasmania.
Chief environmental scientist Andrea Henwood urged people to take precautions to take precautions, saying the smoke will linger until Wednesday.
A total of nine people have been killed in the New South Wales bushfires since Monday, taking the total death toll across the nation to 23.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews confirmed six people are still missing after the fires, which destroyed more than a million hectares – 800,000 in East Gippsland alone.
In total, more than six million hectares of land has been decimated in the blazes, which have been burning since about October.