Munich International Airport

Position of center of photo (Lat/Long): [48.35231/11.78484]

The airport lies 31 kilometers to the northeast of Munich. Rather than being an extension of the metropolis, the airport is surrounded by agricultural fields and small towns. The agricultural fields in active use appear in various shades of green, while the exposed soils of fallow fields appear brown to tan. Roadways around the airport appear as thin, intersecting lines. The white concrete airport runways are 4 kilometers in length. At bottom center, the magnified shadows of clouds hang over the scene.

The airport grew in 2003 with the addition of Terminal 2, designed specifically to accommodate the needs of Lufthansa and its partner airlines. This astronaut photograph, taken from the International Space Station, shows enough detail to distinguish individual airplanes on the terminal apron (inset; white rectangle marks location on main image), and the dark gray-blue rooftop of Terminal 2. Astronauts achieve this level of photographic detail - the image resolution approaches 4 meters/pixel - by manually tracking the motion of the ground as the spacecraft orbits the earth at more than 7 kilometers per second. This photo was taken at a relatively slow shutter speed (1/60 second), which equates to more than 100 meters of ground motion. Precise astronaut tracking is required to improve the resolution in detailed images taken with long lenses.