ESA satellite image shows Namibia’s Etosha Pan at start of dry season

The European Space Agency published the image on 9 October 2026, but the satellite captured it six months earlier, on 5 April. It shows Etosha National Park in northern Namibia and its main salt flat, the Etosha Pan, which ESA says stretches roughly 130 kilometres from east to west and covers 4,760 square kilometres. [1]

This is a false-colour image, not a view of the landscape as the human eye would see it. The white expanse marks the salt pan, while red highlights vegetation. Shades of blue indicate water: ESA says lighter blue shows water containing cloudy sediment and darker blue shows clearer water. Sentinel-2’s imager detects light in 13 spectral bands, allowing it to highlight features such as vegetation. [1]

ESA says the image was taken at the beginning of the dry season, when water was still present in smaller salt pans north-west of Etosha Pan. That observation describes conditions in April, not when the image was published in October. [1]