Hong Kong University of Science and Technology releases the first batch of remote sensing images of Hong Kong captured by "Tianyun Camera"

China News Service, Hong Kong, September 30th. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology ("HKUST") released the first batch of Hong Kong remote sensing images captured by the "Tianyun Camera" on the 30th, demonstrating the important results of Hong Kong's scientific research team participating in the national aerospace project.

On September 30, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology released the first batch of Hong Kong remote sensing images captured by the "Tianyun Camera". The picture shows the ground trajectory of the "Tianyun Camera" when it flew over the Pearl River Estuary and most areas of Hong Kong on September 25, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

"Tianyun Camera" is the world's first lightweight, compact, high-resolution, and high-precision point source collaborative detector for carbon dioxide and methane developed by HKUST. Currently, the instrument has been performing on-orbit scientific missions on the space station for more than three months, and has successfully completed a number of system tests, calibrations and calibrations.

According to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the images and videos released this time were obtained by four detectors of carbon dioxide, methane, oxygen and aerosols equipped with the "Tianyun Camera", clearly showing the landform characteristics of Hong Kong and surrounding areas. At present, the relevant team has completed the main on-orbit testing and accuracy calibration of the instrument, and has officially entered the regular scientific operation stage.

Su Hui, leader of the "Tianyun Camera" project and chair professor of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said that in the past few months, "Tianyun Camera" has acquired images of more than 450 target areas around the world, with a total data volume of 4.3TB (terabytes). As a scientific research load independently developed by Hong Kong, "Tianyun Camera" is contributing Hong Kong's strength to national and even global climate governance.

Zhai Chengxing, associate professor at the Department of Emerging Interdisciplinary Areas at HKUST, said that the team is carrying out processing, analysis, correction and inversion work based on the collected data, and will cooperate with national and international scientific research institutions to verify the inversion accuracy of carbon dioxide and methane concentrations. The team is also further optimizing relevant algorithms and will gradually release more observation results in the future to provide strong support for global greenhouse gas monitoring and climate change research.