Chile is home to the nearly 3 km (9300 foot) high Volcán Villarrica
, seen in this image by the Earth Observing-1 satellite. Remarkably, this isn't actually
a photograph, at least as people usually think of them: it was built up line by line instead of all at once like a normal digital camera.
The detector on the camera is a single row of pixels. As the satellite moves around the Earth, the detector sweeps over the landscape, and the one-dimensional row of pixels can be stacked up to create a continuous picture of what's going on below. It's just one more way scientists can observe our home planet and learn how it behaves. Sometimes learning about Earth isn't obvious, and stepping away - and using unusual methods - is the best way to do it.Image credit: NASA