Europe’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite mission captured this stunning image of south-central Morocco, showing the the city of Ouarzazate, the Anti-Atlas Mountains, and the Ouarzazate solar power station.
What is it?
This false-color image of south-central Morocco was taken by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission and released on the European Space Agency website on Feb 20, 2026.
The image shows the northern edge of the Anti-Atlas Mountains, which sit just below the city of Ouarzazate. The upper half of the photo is dominated by a vast desert landscape, which is home to the Ouarzazate solar power station.
We can see striking contrasts from the colored regions, with huge areas of vegetation shown in bright red, and the El Mansour Eddahbi Reservoir, which is shown as a deep, dark blue. The image was taken in January 2026, during the rainy season, which means we can also clearly see the rivers and tributaries that feed into the reservoir.
Why is it special?
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, which captured these images, comprises three satellites that sit in low Earth orbit. The Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B satellites launched in June 2015 and March 2017, respectively, and Sentinel-2C joined them in orbit in 2024.
Since this is a false-color image that has been processed using Sentinel-2’s near-infrared channel, vegetation appears with a striking red hue. This is because plants reflect more near-infrared than green light, resulting in a bright red coloration.
We can also see the staggering size of the Ouarzazate solar power station, also called Noor (Arabic for “light”) Power Station. This mammoth site covers over 7,400 acres (3,000 hectares) — almost as large as the city itself — and is the world’s largest concentrated solar power facility.
