Electro-L Earth time-lapse: Russian satellite takes highest resolution Earth images, YouTube video

You haven't seen Earth like this before!

The highest-resolution photo ever taken of Earth shows a blue, bold and beautiful planet.

This stunning picture didn't come from NASA. It was actually captured by a Russian weather satellite, Electro-L.

The high-resolution picture is 121 megapixels, and differs from the photos of Earth taken by NASA. The new picture is one single shot, not a series of photographs pasted together, like NASA's "Blue Marble" shot.

According to the YouTube poster of the time-lapse video, the satellite creates a 121 megapixel image every 30 minutes with four visible and infrared light wavelengths. The infrared light appears orange in these images, and shows vegetation. The images were obtained beginning on May 14, 2011 and end on May 20.

Watch the time-lapse video of Earth using images taken by the Russian weather satellite.