EARTH is ready to be seen in close-up, thanks to Oxfordshire scientists who have made the first ever high definition cameras to stream footage from space.

Two cameras created by Harwell-based Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) will beam high quality images down to Earth to be quickly made available online.

It hopes the images will help people track the changing face of the planet, such as the impact of deforestation.

The cameras have been made by RAL Space and will be launched tonight for the International Space Station (ISS).

The ISS orbits the planet 16 times a day and the cameras, to start operating early next month, will be able to cover 95 per cent of its population.

The first camera will move continuously, covering 28 miles across, at a resolution of 6m pixels or 8,000 pixels across.

The second camera is for fixed and more detailed videos and pictures taken at 14m pixels of a 3.1-by-1.6 mile area.

It is a joint project between Canada, Russia and UK firms with images supplied by Canada’s UrtheCast, which will also cover specific areas for a fee.

RAL head of optical and project manager Ian Tosh has flown to Kazakhstan for tonight’s launch and said he was excited about seeing it go live.

“It is the culmination of a couple of years hard work,” he said.

“We have been doing this kind of work for 30 or 40 years and they came to us because we know what we’re doing. It has been a challenging project but it’ll be a joy to see it finished.”

Sarah Smart, spokesman for RAL Space, said the cameras differ from other web-based aerial photography such as Google Earth as images would be more frequently updated.

She said: “It will be changing all the time and constantly updating. It will have educational worth as we will be able to look at things like deforestation. We will be able to see it month by month.

“This will give users the unique opportunity to see man-made objects and groups of people and to search for videos of particular locations.

“It will be possible to zoom in and out, virtually steer the camera from side to side, rewind and fast forward.

“The web platform also gives users the capability to constantly track the location of the ISS, anticipating the exact time when it will pass over a particular geographic location.”

RAL Space was set up in 1961 and is part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council which works with the UK Space Agency. It has put 202 instruments in space and has previously worked on pioneering camera technology.

The cameras — the first to stream images in high definition — will be launched in a rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

To see the live rocket launch feed, visit http://urthecast.com