The image was captured by one of the two Copernicus Sentinel-3 ocean-monitoring satellites.
The first satellite of the pair, Sentinel-3A, celebrated its eighth anniversary this month after its launch on 16 February 2016. Sentinel-3B was launched two years later, on 25 April 2018.
The Sentinel-3 satellites are in a near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 815 kilometres, and they are designed to monitor the Earth's oceans, land, ice, and atmosphere.
Over the oceans, the satellites observe ocean colour, sea surface temperature, sea surface height, and sea ice.
Image of the week: Swirls of colour in the Adriatic Sea
Celebrating the eighth anniversary of the launch of Copernicus Sentinel-3A
This week’s image of the week focuses on Italy and the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas, where swirls of sediment washed out from rivers and possible phytoplankton can be seen along the coast and further out to sea.
Swirls of colour
This image was captured by the OLCI instrument onboard Sentinel-3 on 21 February 2024.
EUMETSAT operates the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellites, in cooperation with ESA, and delivers the marine data on behalf of the European Union.
More information
About Copernicus
Find out about EUMETSAT ocean colour services
Access marine data via EUMETSAT user portal
Visualise Sentinel-3 data with EUMETview or WEkEO
Visit the Copernicus marine service
