An alien landscape? Check out this picture captured by ESA's Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission

This false-colour image captured by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission looks like an alien landscape, but it actually features a part of the White Nile state in Sudan.

The area pictured here is located just north of Kosti, which lies on the west bank of the White Nile River (not visible in this image). This image, captured on 25 August 2021, was processed in a way that also includes information from the near-infrared channel and shows vegetation in tones of red. This band combination is routinely used to monitor vegetation health.

In this image, many agricultural plots can also be spotted in red along with several small villages, with many of them visible near artificial water reservoirs (easily spotted with their rectangular shape).

An alien landscape? Nope, the White Nile state in Sudan seen form space! This false-colour image was processed in a way that also includes information from the near-infrared channel and shows vegetation in tones of red. Get the full image here: https://t.co/eOh38usFEB pic.twitter.com/EQFBtCJrlw

— ESA EarthObservation (@ESA_EO) August 2, 2022

ESA's Copernicus Sentinel-2 is a polar-orbiting mission for land monitoring. It has two satellites, Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B, each carrying a high-resolution camera that images Earth’s surface in 13 spectral bands. According to the agency, the type of band combination from Sentinel-2 used to process this image is commonly used to assess plant density and health, as plants reflect near-infrared and green light while absorbing red.

More details about the image can be found here.