Sodankylä, Finnish Lapland

Captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission in August 2024, this image showcases Sodankylä in Finnish Lapland. The high-latitude location is excellent for receiving data from polar orbiting satellites.

Deep in the boreal forest, Sodankylä is already home to the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s Arctic Space Centre – a unique research infrastructure providing in situ and ground-based observations on the interaction between the Earth’s surface, biosphere and the atmosphere. Now, ESA and the institute are exploring the possibility of expanding this facility to a ‘supersite’ for the calibration and validation of measurements taken by satellites and to test instruments in development that could, in the future, be carried on satellites.

Read full story: ESA and Finland pave the way towards a supersite for Earth observation