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In typical full-disk pictures of Earth taken from space, we can’t see satellites or orbital debris because they’re far too small relative to Earth’s enormous surface. Most such images resolve only about 8–12 kilometers per pixel, while even the 109-meter International Space Station spans less than a hundredth of that. Although over 14,000 active satellites and 54,000+ trackable debris objects circle our planet, every single one is sub-pixel in the photograph.
We are often contacted by our readers with questions whose answers seem incredibly obvious. Posts like “Where does sugar go after being dissolved?“, “What is the ISS?” or “Where do fish come from in newly formed ponds?” are just some of the many articles that were attempts to answer such questions.
A few days ago, a reader wanted to know the answer to yet another seemingly basic, but very interesting question – why don’t we see any satellites in the numerous pictures of Earth taken from a great distance? If you’re not clear what we’re talking about, go ahead and look up ‘pictures of Earth’ on the Internet. To make it even more convenient for you, I’ll just put a collage of some pictures of Earth right here:
If you really think about it, it’s actually quite a valid question. I mean, there are now well over 14,000 active satellites whizzing around the Earth, and those are just the operational, man-made ones — SpaceX’s Starlink constellation alone accounts for more than 10,000 of them. If you throw in every object orbiting our planet, the number balloons spectacularly: as of 2025, the European Space Agency’s Space Environment Report tracks roughly 54,000 objects larger than 10 centimeters, an estimated 1.2 million pieces between 1 and 10 cm, and a staggering 130 million-plus fragments smaller than 1 cm spinning around the Earth right now.
Why don’t we see any of that in our numerous pictures of Earth?
Short answer: The Earth is too big and these objects are too small in comparison to be visible in the same photograph.
First, let’s briefly take a look at the number of ‘space objects’ circling our planet.
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Objects Orbiting The Earth
There are thousands upon thousands of objects spinning around the Earth. Some of them are very small (i.e. less than 10 centimeters across) while others are quite huge, relatively speaking.
Man-made Objects
Let’s briefly talk about the numerous man-made objects around the planet. Take the ISS, for example.
It’s approximately 109 meters (356 feet) by 73 meters (240 feet). To put in perspective, it’s slightly larger than a football field. This is the largest (and also, the costliest) man-made object currently orbiting the planet. Apart from that, there are thousands of man-made objects, including the Hubble Space Telescope, Astrosat, NOAA 18 and many other Earth-observation satellites constantly spinning around the Earth.
Space Debris
Note that these are only the currently operational ones; there are a number of defunct satellites up there too that cannot be repaired. They’re basically going to have to stay up there until they gradually lose altitude and burn up in the atmosphere. These types of satellites add up to a huge amount of space junk, which is a big cause of concern for future space flights.
Natural Objects
Apart from man-made satellites and space junk, there are also tens of thousands of celestial objects circling the planet. Such objects have sizes ranging from a couple centimeters to a few feet.
There’s one singular takeaway from all of this – there are a LOT of objects circling our planet.
Why Are Satellites And Celestial Objects Not Visible In Pictures Of Earth?
The answer is pretty straightforward – it’s because Earth is very, very big. It’s hard to say why, but people generally tend to underestimate the sheer enormity of our planet. Our planet is HUGE, in the real sense of the word. In comparison, the objects that orbit the planet are – for the lack of a better word to denote minuteness – puny.
Take the ISS – the biggest man-made object currently spinning around the planet – for example. It has a surface area of around 2,500 square meters or 0.0025 square km, which is almost equal to the size of a 6-bedroom apartment. (Source) In contrast, the surface area of the Earth is 510.1 million km squared. (Source). We can now calculate how many ISS’es would it need to completely cover the Earth’s surface by applying simple arithmetic.
So, it would take 204 billion ISS’es to entirely cover the planet! To have some idea of what this means visually, take a look at this picture:
Note that the pictures of Earth do have satellites in them; however, they’re too tiny to be resolved in the image. Most full-disk images of our planet (think NASA’s DSCOVR/EPIC view from the L1 Lagrange point) are only a few thousand pixels in diameter, with each pixel covering 8–12 kilometers of Earth; so unless an object is of the order of a kilometer or more (which no object in the vicinity of the planet is), it would only be a fraction of a pixel, and thus invisible in the image. Furthermore, many satellites and a great deal of space debris orbit far above the ISS (which clicks a lot of pictures of our planet from low Earth orbit), so it’s not going to capture an enormous number of objects in the picture anyway, since they’re not there in the first place!
However, there are occasions when you can see a satellite in an Earth-picture, but it would be too small (yes, “magnifying glasses-small”), and practically indistinguishable from the stars in the backdrop. There’s also one notable exception worth flagging: in long-exposure astrophotography taken from the ground, Starlink “trains” are now famously visible — and increasingly notorious — as bright parallel streaks slicing across the night sky, much to the dismay of astronomers worldwide.
So, if someone asks why they can’t see satellites in the images of Earth, ask them why a picture of their house doesn’t show the two dozen flies nearby, or why a full-body picture doesn’t show the huge number of bacteria and germs living on their body. Hopefully, that will help them understand!
