[tokenadult]

"The mounds, which are easily visible on Google Earth, are not nests."

This sentence from the article kindly submitted here ignores that Google Earth imagery includes imagery taken from airplanes as well as from satellites. Statements that such-and-such an object (a classic example is the Great Wall of China) is visible from space, or from the Moon, go back to eras long before human space flight. Most such statements are wrong.

As other comments previous to mine have noted, various specialized imaging devices in satellites (or on airplanes) can have a higher resolution than human-eye vision. But the headline "are visible from space" is surely an exaggeration. Space flight has been going on since 1960s, but there has been no report of the termite mounds till now, it appears.

[notable_user]

Most things outdoors are visible from space with a high enough resolution/zoom camera. I’ve always thought the statement “viable from space” was closer to meaningless rather than exaggerated.

“Visible from space with the naked eye” would be more meaningful but rarely is that claim made.

[Retric]

In this case it’s more visible on google Maps, which was actually taken from space vs high resolution aerial photos.

[wincy]

It feels a bit disingenuous and clickbaity, like if an article said a bacteria was “visible to the human eye (with a microscope)”.

[newnewpdro]

Agreed, it's a meaningless statement.

Considering the space shuttle's cargo bay was dimensioned to accomodate Hubble-sized spy satellites to be aimed at earth rather than the cosmos, practically everything on the surface of the planet is visible from space.