In this monthly feature, we span the globe to examine Our Changing Landscape with a time series of medium-resolution PlanetScope satellite imagery. The PlanetScope constellation dates back to 2016 and collects hundreds of millions of square kilometers of four and eight-band 3-meter imagery daily! In June, we featured tragic Cyclone Ditwah that impacted Colombo, Sri Lanka. For the July edition of this series, we travel to Vulkan Krenityna in Sakhalin Oblast, Russia.
Click on the image above to see an animation of 3-meter natural color PlanetScope image collected over Vulkan Krentitsyna on January 8, May 16, and August 16, 2024. This animation spans three seasons from a deep winter chill with snow on the ground in January. To a late spring May melt where you can see the frozen lake is breaking apart and the snow is melting on the peaks of the volcano. And finally, to summer in August where the landscape is covered with lush green vegetation. (Images Courtesy: © Planet 2026)The PlanetScope Microsat Constellation
PlanetScope is a constellation of more than 240 microsats referred to individually as Doves. Each Dove is able to collect up to 20,000 square kilometers (sq km) per day of 3-meter (m) 4-band multispectral (i.e. blue, green, red and near-infrared [NIR]) imagery; and newly launched SuperDoves collect 8-band multispectral adding in valuable red-edge spectral data. Across the constellation, PlanetScope is archiving more than 200 million sq km of medium-resolution imagery a day, making it the go to source for daily imagery over most locations. This massive archive dates back to 2016, offering the most complete and continuous record of spatial data on the planet since the start of the constellation’s ongoing launch schedule. Collecting 3-meter multispectral imagery is the equivalent of ‘high-resolution’ multispectral data imaged by a 75-centimer (cm) satellite (as this satellite would feature 75-cm panchromatic and 3-m multispectral), making PlanetScope an extremely competitively priced option at just $2.25 per sq km. With well registered images and nearly daily collections of most locations, PlanetScope is the ideal imagery source for this current-events focused series, Our Changing Landscape.
Vulkan Krenityna Through The Seasons
The Krenitsyna Volcano sits on the southern side of Onekotan, which is part of the Kuril Islands that extend between the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia and Hokkaido in Japan. Surrounded by the Kol’tsevoye Lake, the volcano stares at the rough terrain encircling it, which includes cliffs and mountains mixed with the coastline.
The crater-like depression in which the volcano sits is called Tsar-Rusyr. Calderas form when the ground collapses into a partially emptied magma chamber during a large eruption. This particular caldera is surrounded by steep 300-meter cliffs that cast shadows along the eastern interior of the volcano.
The caldera holds the blue waters of Kol’tsevoye Lake, which reaches depths of up to 370 meters (1,200 feet). This lake happens to be one of the deepest in Russia. The volcano, also called Krenitsyna Peak, stands approximately 1,300 meters above sea level. The last eruption happened in November 1952 and was categorized as moderate.
If you would like to find out more about using 3-meter PlanetScope imagery for your academic studies, engineering projects or any landscape analysis, let us know at sales@apollomapping.com or (303) 993-3863.
Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved - 
Leave a Reply