Russia’s ELECTRO-L weather satellite has used its 121-megapixel sensors to send home the highest-resolution set of space pics yet.

Even NASA admits it can't match the Russian bird for sheer mega-pixelage, which is yours to peruse thanks to an animated GIF proivded by the Russian Federal Space Agency. The original is a little too large to fit within the slim environs of a Reg story, but you can find it here if it takes your fancy.

ELECTRO-L went aloft in early 2011 and snaps Earth every 30 minutes or so, and the Agency will happily sell you snaps from the bird. Each image packs a kilometre of Terran surface into each pixel.

Images are for sale and there’s even an FTP site at ftp://ftp.ntsomz.ru/ if you want to peruse the satellite’s output. Anonymous login works, but the Agency generously offers “electro” as both username and password if you want to rummage about.

If that sounds a bit tedious, there’s also the YouTube montage below which shows off more of the wonderful images from the satellite.

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