Image of the week: Croatia’s heart-shaped island

Celebrating Valentine’s Day with a view from space

This week’s image of the week is of Croatia’s unique Galešnjak island, which is nicknamed the “island of love”.

Last Updated

16 February 2024

Published on

14 February 2024

The heart-shaped island has an area of about 0.13 square kilometres and is situated in the Adriatic between the island of Pašman and mainland Croatia.

Galešnjak, which is uninhabited, first caught the public eye in 2009 when Google Earth highlighted its shape to the wider world.

Galešnjak island

This image of Galešnjak island was captured by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites, a European satellite mission providing high-resolution imagery to monitor the land and coastal areas.

The Sentinel-2A and -2B satellites are in a polar, sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 786 kilometres.

The satellites support a range of services and applications offered by Copernicus, including land management, agriculture, forestry, disaster control, humanitarian relief operations, risk mapping, and security concerns.