Dr. Kate Fickas is a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mendenhall Fellow and creator of the #LadiesOfLandsat — a group dedicated to bringing together people who use Landsat data. She uses Landsat to study climate sensitive ecosystems, like wetlands, and how they change over time.
Her favorite Landsat image comes from Landsat 1 in October 1972. It’s one of the first Landsat images of her home state of Oregon and was taken the same month The Clean Water Act went into effect, protecting wetlands and reservoirs like those of the Willamette River, in the image.
Today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Landsat 1. Since then, @USGS and @NASA have worked together on the Landsat program, providing continuous global imaging of Earth’s land and near-coastal regions.
IMAGE DESCRIPTIONS:
Image 1: An old satellite image of the Willamette River region, rendered in translated color, mostly greens and reds. Down the center of the image appears bright red, fading from a lighter color nearer the left side to very dark burgundy on the right. This red strip corresponds with visibly textured, mountainous terrain. To the far left of the image, lies a mostly flat patchwork of mint green and light red. To the far right, the rocky landscape is mostly mint green, with jagged lines of rivers zigzagging across the landscape.
Image 2: A portrait of a white woman with long blond hair softly smiling at the camera. She has on a striped shirt and a green beaded necklace. She is standing in front of a wall of green vegetation.
#Landsat#Landsat50#LandSaturday#RemoteSensing#Space#Earth#EarthScience#earthfromspace
Landsat’s been taking Earth selfies for 50 years! 📸🌎
Dr. Chris Neigh, Landsat 9 project scientist, shares how the Landsat satellites have documented changes on Earth – revealing patterns, cycles, and trends of our environment.
Beginning July 26, you can participate in The @GlobeProgram’s Land Cover Challenge and submit photos of land cover in your area.
#Landsat50#EarthFromSpace#LandCover#EarthScience
Meet Dr. Jim Irons, the Director Emeritus of Goddard’s Earth Science Division! Jim worked at Goddard for 43 years, and was a project scientist for Landsat 8 from 1999 to 2021. He used #Landsat data to study human-caused changes to Earth.
Jim’s favorite Landsat image is of central Pennsylvania including Penn State University, where he went to school. Why? Because “sometimes, we forget about the awe of just looking back at Earth from space, observing the natural and intrinsic beauty of our own planet.”
Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Landsat 1. Since then, @usgs and @nasa have worked together on the Landsat program, providing continuous global imaging of Earth’s land and near-coastal regions.
IMAGE DESCRIPTIONS:
Image 1: A satellite image of central Pennsylvania, with undulating stripes of burnt orange and bright green. The stripes of orange are mountains, running diagonally across the image in broad sweeps. Bright green vegetation and beige human development speckle the image, filling the gaps between the orange mountains. In the upper left corner, the land becomes a more jumbled, darker mix of brown and green as the mountains flatten.
Image 2: A portrait of a white man with white hair and a white mustache, smiles at the camera. He is framed against a blue background wearing a green and white plaid shirt.
#Landsat#Landsat50#LandSaturday#RemoteSensing#Space#Earth#EarthScience#earthfromspace
53 years ago and almost 240,000 miles away, we set foot on our very own natural satellite.
Apollo 11 astronauts explored the lunar surface, collecting samples to bring back to Earth. Happy #InternationalMoonDay!
Every year, the Lena River moves over 20 million metric tons of suspended sediment into the Laptev Sea. Some of that suspended sediment is visible flowing from beneath an ice shelf at the top right of this image.
The permafrost is pockmarked in the northwestern part of the delta. The older, drier part of the delta is composed of alluvial and marine sediments covered with moss and lichens, which appear lighter brown in this image. The area is covered with lakes and depressions that formed when permafrost or buried ice melted and caused the sandy soils to subside.
Off the northwest coast of the delta in the Laptev Sea, the Dunay Islands are encased in fast ice – ice that is anchored to the shore or sea floor. 🧊
This image was taken by the OLI-2 instrument on the joint NASA and USGS Landsat 9 satellite on June 17, 2022.
How many volcanic cones can you spot? 🤔 🌋
This image shows the western portion of São Miguel Island, part of the Portuguese Azores. The Azores archipelago lies at the junction of the North American, Eurasian, and African tectonic plates – making it a volcanically and seismically active region.
The Sete Cidades caldera – a large crater formed when a volcano erupts and collapses – shown here contains several smaller volcanic cones and two lakes. The larger, Sete Cidades Lake, is made up of two connected branches: Lagoa Azul (on the top in this image) and Lagoa Verde. The lake water is high in sodium and chloride due to sea salt spray.
Two other volcanic cones are nearby: Caldeira do Alfreres, which formed during an eruption around 2050 BCE, and Caldeira Seca, which last erupted in 1444.
This image of São Miguel was acquired in December 2018 by the Landsat 8 satellite.
#EarthFromSpace#Azores#Island#Volcano
🧂🌋🧂
The Tunupa Volcano is on a peninsula between two of Bolivia’s largest salt flats, Salar de Coipasa (top left in this image) and Salar de Uyuni (bottom right).
The salt flats are typically a bright white color when viewed from space. But, during Bolivia’s rainy season, rivers can carry sediment rich in microbes and volcanic minerals onto the flats – creating the dark-colored swirls in this photo.
Tunupa Volcano was last active 1.4 million years ago and is now considered dormant.
#Volcano#SaltFlats#EarthFromSpace#Bolivia
The Gobi Desert is the GOAT for cashmere goats 🐐
Climate change has made the Gobi Desert ecosystem wetter and warmer, which can mean more grass for cashmere goats to graze on. But climate change has also created more extreme swings in weather, from droughts to floods.
To help herders manage the extreme weather, NASA scientists joined an initiative called the Sustainable Cashmere Project.
Together, they used satellite data to create models that could predict rangeland conditions based on factors like weather, herd sizes and more.
The goal? To get this information into the hands of goat herders so they could make decisions that would keep their herds safe and preserve their livelihoods.
Other partners in the Sustainable Cashmere Project include the luxury fashion company Kering, which owns Gucci and other brands, Stanford University, a local mining company and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Coloring the Black Sea 🎨
In satellite images, the Black Sea is often a dark, inky blue. But a phytoplankton bloom recently painted the water with color so brilliant it can be seen from space.
The turquoise swirls indicate the presence of phytoplankton tracing the flow of water currents and eddies. One type of phytoplankton commonly found in the Black Sea is coccolithophores—microscopic plankton that are plated with white calcium carbonate. When aggregated in large numbers, these reflective plates are easily visible from space and make the water appear bright, milky blue. 🌊
📸This image blends data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-20 satellite and the VIIRS on the Suomi NPP satellite.
#BlackSea#Ocean#EarthFromSpace#NASA#Phytoplankton
Did you recognize our June puzzler? 👀
If you guessed Paramaribo, you’re correct!
Paramaribo is Suriname’s capital and largest city, centered on the west bank of the Suriname River. The historic city center and main port are located along the sharp bend in the center of the image.
The second image shows neighborhoods south of Paramaribo in the Wanica district along the Tout Lui Faut canal.
Suspended sediment has muddied parts of the river and estuary. Much of the coarser-grained sand that once flowed down the river is now trapped upstream by the Afobaka Dam, so much of the sediment is likely fine-grained particles of clay. Scientists have conducted research that shows coastal currents also carry significant amounts of sediment from the Amazon River, which drains into the Atlantic Ocean about 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the southeast.
📸 Photos taken by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 on September 10, 2020
#EarthFromSpace#Paramaribo#SurinameRiver#ViewFromSpace#Landsat#RemoteSensing