Plot twist – Copernicus Images of the Night
After more than a decade in orbit, the Copernicus Sentinel-2A satellite is still helping to push the boundaries of Earth Observation. Originally designed to acquire high-resolution, daylight images of land and coastal areas, Sentinel-2A has recently been used in experimental night-time imaging to assess its performance in darkness.
The images show wildfires in the state of Uttarakhand, India on the right and fishing boats off the coast of Jeju in South Korea on the left. They were both acquired by Copernicus Sentinel-2A during the night of 9 December 2025.
As Sentinel-2A approaches the end of its operational life, engineers and scientists are using its remaining time in orbit to test new ideas for the future, while its younger siblings, Sentinel-2B and Sentinel-2C, are now leading the mission’s core task.
