Earth from Area: Maha Kumbh Mela competition, India

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captured the Maha Kumbh Mela competition, the world’s largest human gathering, which passed off within the metropolis of Prayagraj in northern India.

Recognised by Unesco in its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, Kumbh Mela is a Hindu pilgrimage held each few years, attracting tens of tens of millions of pilgrims from India and throughout the globe. The occasion this yr was held from 13 January to 26 February.

4 sacred cities take it in flip to host the competition, the place pilgrims come to wash in a cleaning ritual. In 2025 it was a Maha (Nice) Kumbh Mela, which happens solely each 144 years, making it much more vital.

The photographs within the slider present the realm on the confluence of the Ganges with the Yamuna river close to Prayagraj, previously generally known as Allahabad. The picture on the left was captured on 13 December 2024, one month earlier than the start of the competition, whereas the picture on the proper was taken on 27 January 2025, throughout the competition, and clearly reveals the extent of the momentary constructions constructed for the occasion.

An unlimited space masking greater than 40 sq km alongside the banks of the Ganges river was transformed right into a sprawling tent metropolis, with housing, electrical energy, ingesting water, parking tons, round 150 000 bogs and 11 hospitals. A collection of floating bridges are additionally seen within the river, connecting the 2 banks of the Ganges.

The identify Kumbh Mela interprets to ‘Pageant of the Sacred Pitcher’ in Sanskrit, the place Kumbh refers back to the pitcher or pot that contained the nectar of immortality in Hindu mythology, and Mela means honest or gathering. Hindus imagine that drops of the nectar fell on the 4 sacred cities that now host the pilgrimage.