The catastrophic explosion in Tianjin, China, on Wednesday was so enormous that it was captured on a Japanese weather satellite.
Here's what the explosion looked like through the satellite, courtesy of the excellent Andy Carvin at the social media reporting site Reported.ly:
Reported.ly took the images from the Japanese weather satellite Himawari 8. According to Carvin, it picked up the explosion in infrared, and that's what you're seeing. Here's the tool Reported.ly used to find the footage.
The causes of the explosion still aren't fully understood: The shipping container appears to have been housing flammable material, but it's not clear what actually caused it to ignite. But the explosion was, without a doubt, massive. There are reports that buildings more than 6 miles away from the blast site collapsed. And this is how the explosion itself looked:
