Mapping Population: Urbanization expansion viewed thru Google Earth archives

Watch humanity spread like a virus with three decades of Google Earth timelapse http://flip.it/hL7EaV

Mapping Saturn: Hexagon polar formations

Cassini Beams Back First Images from New Orbit http://flip.it/6_RSU1

Cool Geo-Video: Mapping Dust from the Sahara to the Amazon

Cool Geo-Pics from NASA's Earth Observatory.



Quick "Cut & Paste":
"....Hundreds of millions of tons of sand and dust particles are lifted from North African deserts each year and carried across the Atlantic Ocean. So much dust is kicked up that the microscopic particles amass into sweeping tan plumes that are visible to satellites......"

"....The data show that wind and weather pick up on average 182 million tons of dust each year and carry it past the western edge of the Sahara. The dust then travels 1,600 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, though some drops to the surface or is flushed from the sky by rain. Near the eastern coast of South America, 132 million tons remain in the air and 27.7 million tons fall to the surface over the Amazon basin....."

References:

1. Barcelona Dust Forecast Center (2105, March 2) Dusty February in the Middle East. Accessed March 2, 2015.
2. NASA (2015, February 24) NASA Satellite Reveals How Much Saharan Dust Feeds Amazon’s Plants. Accessed March 2, 2015.
3. NASA Earth Observatory (2013, August 29) Tracking Dust Across the Atlantic.
4. NASA Earth Observatory (2014, July 5) Saharan Dust on the Move.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Jesse Allen, using Aqua and Terra MODIS data from the Land Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE), and the University of Wisconsin’s Space Science and Engineering Center for Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership data from the VIIRS instrument. Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Defense. Caption by Michael Carlowicz and Ellen Gray, with image interpretation from Lorraine Remer, Santiago Gassó, and Ralph Kahn.

Instrument(s): 

Terra - MODIS

Aqua - MODIS

Suomi NPP - VIIRS

Mapping the Earth: The View from the Top - a Polar Perspective

The View from the Top

Quick Cut & Paste:

There have been many images of the full disc of Earth from space—a view often referred to as “the Blue Marble”—but few have looked quite like this. Using natural-color images from the Visible/Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the recently launched Suomi-NPP satellite, a NASA scientist has compiled a new view showing the Arctic and high latitudes.

 

 

Source:

Ocean scientist Norman Kuring of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center pieced together this composite image of Europe, Asia, North Africa, and the entire Arctic. It was compiled from 15 satellite passes made by Suomi-NPP on May 26, 2012. The spacecraft circles the Earth from pole to pole at an altitude of 824 kilometers (512 miles), so it takes multiple passes to gather enough data to show an entire hemisphere without gaps in the view.

 

 

Instrument:  Suomi NPP - VIIRS

 VIIRS is a scanning radiometer that acquires data in 22 spectral bands, covering visible, near-infrared, and thermal infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. It was designed to extend and improve upon the measurements of land masses, oceans, ice, and the atmosphere made over the past two decades by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS).

Full Credits:

Image & text taken from NASA's Earth Observatory site.

Image by Norman Kuring, NASA/GSFC/Suomi NPP. Caption by Michael Carlowicz. Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, NOAA and the Department of Defense.

                              

Further Reading:

1. NASA Suomi NPP Images and Data.
2. NASA Earth Observatory Earth, Behind the Scenes.
3. NASA Ocean Color Web.

 

Mapping a Mars Landing - T-40 days to the Red Planet

Mapping a new type of Mars landing sequence- brilliant engineering "madness". T-40 days till touchdown on the Red Planet on 5 August.

Mapping the Earth - Blue Marble v.2.0

Another stunning image from NASA's Earth Oberservatory site. The below highlights and links documents the imagery collection.

Quick "Cut & Paste" Highlights:
" .... The image above, of Earth’s eastern hemisphere, was built from data collected by the Suomi NPP satellite, which flies in a polar orbit at an altitude of 824 kilometers (512 miles). The perspective of this new image, however, is from 12,743 kilometers (7,918 miles) above a point at 10 degrees South latitude and 45 degrees East longitude."

".....Kuring managed to “step back” from Earth by combining data from six separate orbits Suomi NPP made on January 23, 2012. The natural-color images come from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the satellite. The four vertical lines of haze are caused by sunglint, the reflection of sunlight off the ocean."

"The graphic above illustrates how separate images in red, green, and blue wavelengths are combined to make natural-color imagery, and how multiple, adjacent swaths—slices of Earth viewed on each satellite pass—get built into a composite. The width of the swaths covered by each pass of VIIRS is about 3,001 kilometers (1,865 miles)...."

Full article - click here

Credits:

Image by NASA/NOAA. Caption by Aries Keck and Mike Carlowicz. Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, NOAA and the Department of Defense.

Instrument: Suomi NPP - VIIRS

Mapping Equinoxes - Understanding Seasonal Change from a Perspective in space

This is both a nice textual and visual explanation of the changes in season.

Quick "Cut & Paste" Highlights:
" ....One of the most frequently misunderstood concepts in science is the reason for Earth’s seasons. As we experience the September equinox today .... we thought we’d offer a space-based view of what’s going on.... The shape of this line between night and day varies with the seasons, which means different lengths of days and differing amounts of warming sunshine...."

"....Of course, it is not the Sun that is moving north or south through the seasons, but a change in the orientation and angles between the Earth and its nearest star. The axis of the Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees relative to the Sun and the ecliptic plane. The axis is tilted away from the Sun at the December solstice and toward the Sun at the June solstice, spreading more and less light on each hemisphere. At the equinoxes, the tilt is at a right angle to the Sun and the light is spread evenly...."

Full article link - click here

Full Credits:

NASA images and animation by Robert Simmon, using data ©2010 EUMETSAT. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.

Instrument:

Meteosat

Related Readings:

1. Stern, D. (2005) From Stargazers to Starships: Seasons of the Year. Accessed September 22, 2011.
2. U.S. Naval Observatory Day and Night Across the Earth. Accessed September 22, 2011.
3. U.S. Naval Oceanographer Earth's Seasons. Accessed September 22, 2011.

Mapping Planetary Rotation in a Binary Star System

This link comes from NASA's Image of the Day and shows how the planetary system might look to a visiting spaceship.



A "Cut and Paste" highlight from the site:


Kepler-16b: A Planet with Two Suns
" Explanation: If you stay up long enough, you can watch both suns set. Such might be a common adage from beings floating in the atmosphere of Kepler 16b, a planet recently discovered by the space-based Kepler satellite. The above animated video shows how the planetary system might look to a visiting spaceship. Although multiple star systems are quite common, this is the first known to have a planet. Because our Earth is in the orbital plane of both stars and the planet, each body is seen to eclipse the others at different times, producing noticeable drop offs in the amount of light seen. The frequent eclipses have given Kepler 16b the most accurate mass and radius determination for a planet outside our Solar System. To find a planet like Saturn in an orbit like Venus -- so close to its binary star parents -- was a surprise and will surely become a focus of research."

Full credits:
APOD NASA Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC & Michigan Tech. U.

Illustrated Video Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, T. Pyle; Acknowledgement: djxatlanta

The Geo-Spatial Revolution - Espisode 1

Most recent release of the Geo-Spatial Revolution project from Penn State. Episode 1 which covers the evolution of geo-spatial technologies and the use of open source mapping in Haitian earthquake relief efforts.

Bringing Dynamic Content to Aerial Imagery - GeoSemble video demo

While a somewhat dated demo, I found how geoSemble seemlessly overlaps vector and raster based map-data with dynamic news content - all tied to the commonality of geography - really fascinating stuff & worth the review.

Cool Geo-Pic: Lake Tiberias (Sea of Galilee), Northern Israel

This Cool Geo-Pic comes again from NASA's Earth Observatory.

Quick "Cut & Paste" Highlights:
".... Israel’s largest freshwater lake, Lake Tiberias, is also known as the Sea of Tiberias, Lake of Gennesaret, Lake Kinneret, and the Sea of Galilee. The lake measures just more than 21 kilometers (13 miles) north-south, and it is only 43 meters (141 feet) deep. The lake is fed partly by underground springs related to the Jordan sector of the Great Rift Valley

, but most of its water comes from the Jordan River, which enters from the north. The river’s winding course can be seen draining the south end of the lake at image bottom...."

".... Ruins of the famous biblical town of Capernaum, re-discovered in 1838 by the American explorer Edward Robinson, lie just north of Tiberias on the northwestern shore of Lake Tiberias. Excavations have revealed a synagogue from the fourth or fifth century, making it one of the oldest in the world...."

download large image (1 MB, JPEG) acquired August 15, 2009

Full Article - Click Here


References / Credits:

Astronaut photograph ISS020-E-31066 was acquired on August 15, 2009, with a Nikon D2Xs digital camera fitted with an 400 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 20 crew. The image in this article has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. Lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by M. Justin Wilkinson, NASA-JSC.

Instrument:
ISS - Digital Camera

Cool Geo-Pic: Space Debris

This Cool Geo-Pic comes again from NASA's Earth Observatory. At first this is a very startling image of "trash in space". Luckily the dots are not to scale, and can be compared to other exaggerations of "blackening the sky...".

Quick "Cut & Paste" Highlights:

" ... Orbital debris, or “space junk,” is any man-made object in orbit around the Earth that no longer serves a useful purpose. Space junk can be bad news for an orbiting satellite.
The dots between the geostationary orbit and the low-Earth orbit are in an orbit used by GPS satellites or a highly elliptical orbit, called Molniya, used to monitor the far north or south. To read more about common satellite orbits, see Catalog of Earth Satellite Orbits on the Earth Observatory...."

"....Though the black dots that represent objects in space swarm around the Earth, obscuring the surface in the lower image, the space junk situation is not as dire as it may appear. The dots are not to scale, and space is a very big place. Collisions between large objects are fairly rare...."

download large Low Earth Orbit image (444 KB, PNG) acquired August 25, 2009

Full Article - Click Here


References / Credits:

NASA Orbital Debris Program Office. (2009, July). Orbital debris frequently asked questions. Accessed September 11, 2009.

NASA illustration courtesy Orbital Debris Program Office. Caption by Holli Riebeek.

Instrument:
Model