NASA shows incredible image of Hurricane Florence in 3D

By Chris Ciaccia | Fox News

Thanks to its Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), NASA has shown an incredible 3D view of Hurricane Florence as it approached the eastern part of the U.S.

The MISR passed over the hurricane on Thursday, NASA said. It has nine cameras that look at the Earth at all times, from different angles. It usually takes about seven minutes for all the cameras to look at the same location, making the above image special. In order to see the 3D effects, 3D glasses will be needed.

"At the time the imagery was acquired, Florence was a large Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph (169 kph)," NASA wrote on its website. "The center of the storm was about 145 miles (230 kilometers) southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina. Coastal areas had already begun to experience tropical-storm-force winds, and millions of people across multiple states were under evacuation orders."

The MISR instrument, flying onboard NASA’s Terra satellite, carries nine cameras that observe Earth at different angles. It takes about seven minutes for all the cameras to observe the same location. This stereo anaglyph shows a 3D view of Florence. You will need red-blue 3D glasses, with the red lens placed over the left eye, to view the effect. The anaglyph shows the high clouds associated with strong thunderstorms in the eyewall of hurricane and individual strong thunderstorms in the outer rain bands. These smaller storms can sometimes spawn tornadoes. (Credit: NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL-Caltech, MISR Team)