The September 11th Attacks Analyzed

This image is was taken by the IKONOS satellite with 3.2 meter resolution on September 15th, 2001.  This image is of Ground Zero in New York City following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Dust and debris of the North and South Towers of the the World Trade Center can be seen through the smoke and haze as first responders tirelessly sorted through rubble. Today this area has two memorial pools and a museum to educate visitors on the impacts of the events that occurred in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania.

Image of the Day, August 8,2019

This imagery shows a vast brown dust cloud of volcanic ash that exploded so powerfully that this volcanic ash rose higher than the clouds in the atmosphere and can be detected from space. The The white color in this image are the clouds. Infrared Bands were used by Terra MODIS Satellite to gathered the size of volcanic ash erupted from a previously inactive Raikoke Volcano in Russia. The volcanic ash is so vast the NPP VIRS satellites used by NASA can see the brown ash from space, because this brown volcanic ash erupted past the cloud covers in the atmosphere. 

https://weather.com/news/news/2019-06-25-raikoke-volcano-eruption-russia-kamchatka-peninsula-iss-images

Iraqi Emplacement in Former Mesopotamian Wetland

This image was acquired by Landsat 7  Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) on January 24, 2001 and was curated as a part of USGA's Earth as Art series, which highlights the beauty of the earth through satellite data. It depicts a former wetland area north of Al-Basrah, Iraq on its border with Iran, which has been walled off and drained, now used for military exercises. It is false-color composite image made using near-infrared, red, and green wavelengths,  which sharpened using the sensor’s panchromatic band.  This area known as the Mesopotamian marshland was initially partially drained by the British to reclaim land for agriculture and clear area for oil exploration, but was later used by Saddam Hussein as a tool of war and revenge to evict Shias that have taken refuge in the marshes after the 1991 rebellion. 

https://eros.usgs.gov/image-gallery/earth-art-1/iraqi-emplacement 

https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=2593  

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/1716/vanishing-marshes-of-mesopotamia  

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• ID:LE07_L1TP_166039_20010124_20170208_01_T1
• Acquisition Date:24-JAN-01
• Path:166
• Row:39

Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica

This is an image used in the study of shrinking glaciers, specifically Pine Island Glacier near the base of the Antarctic Peninsula. This image itself is particularly interesting because it shows the emergence of an abnormal rift in the glacier, where it will eventually break off and become an iceberg. By using remote sensing, the scientists can study how these glaciers are melting and breaking off, and the increase in frequency that that pattern is happening throughout Antarctica. That pattern recognition is important for the understanding of how warming waters is effecting glacier melting specifically with which is more pertinent;  thinning at the glaciers edge, ice front retreating inland, and acceleration of these trends.

Sao Palo at Night: The Urban Sprawl of Brazil's Largest City

This is a medium resolution satellite image of Brazil's largest city at night- Sao Paulo. What makes this a cool photo is the evidence of Sao Paulo's urban sprawl. Apparently the dark green and lighter brown colors reflect the different types of street lamps used to illuminate the city. This is one example of the trend of developing countries becoming more and more urbanized. 

Links to relevant websites: Photo-https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/5036958477

More Info- https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/04/pictures/110422-earth-day-2011-earth-day-google-doodle-satellite-from-space-pictures-nasa-astronauts/

A Brick Kiln in India: Using satellite imagery to fight modern slavery

This image is taken from an article in Science which discusses how analysts at the Rights Lab in the UK are using satellite imagery to identify signs of slavery around the world. This particular image is centered on a brick kiln, made recognizable by its brown color and ovular shape which stand out amidst the surrounding agricultural fields. Since brick kilns are often run using forced labor, identifying their locations can help human rights defenders crack down on slaveholders. The image was obtained from one of the DigitalGlobe satellites; these satellites have very high resolution, which provides adequate detail for identifying such features. Given that brick kilns number into the tens of thousands in South Asia, the Rights Lab is now training artificial intelligence to identify the kilns, allowing for much quicker identification. The article concludes with a discussion on how other satellites or spectral signatures could be used.

Website: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/researchers-spy-signs-slavery-space

Aftermath of the Kilauea Volcanic Eruption

Aftermath of the Kilauea Volcanic Eruption

This image shows the new reality of what used to be a small village on the island Hawai'i. A large volcanic eruption in 2018 changed the landscape permanently, and the area is now uninhabited. In this after photo, we can see remnants of this settlement in areas of land that are higher in elevation, such as the crater feature on the left and the couple of houses preserved on the hill towards the top of the image. Lava appears as a very distinct and unique texture in the image, looking inconsistent and wrinkled. This is an important application of remote sensing as it is used to evaluate the damage from a natural disaster, and can inform people of the extent of this lava flow. 

To view other areas affected by the eruption as well as the before photo to this image, visit this link. This image is sourced from a high resolution Planet sensor.

Potash Evaporation Ponds Moab, UT

Shown in this picture are a series of evaporation ponds for potash, or salts that contain potassium used for fertilizer located near Moab, UT. A solution is pumped into the ground at the potash mine (not pictured) 2,400 to 4,000 feet underground to dissolve the potash. The solution is then pumped to the evaporation pools, dyed blue to increase evaporation and left to dry in the sun for ~300 days before it is scraped up and shipped off for further processing. The varying coloration in the ponds is due to the difference in water concentration in each pond. This picture was not cited except to credit NASA however similar pictures, with the same angle and resolution, of this mine are attributed to Landsat 8.

Image of the Day, July 15, 2019

I choose an image capturing Plasticulture in the alleys of Almeria, Spain.  This picture is not only aesthetically pleasing, but it also photographs a booming agricultural method in Europe, as the fruits and vegetables produced by Plasticulture is now responsible for $1.5 billion of Almeria's annual revenue.  

The top of the image displays the mountainous alleys, composed of little vegetation; whereas the bottom of the image, illustrates the greenhouses built from plastic materials, which serve the purpose of storing growing fruits and vegetables. 

Lower Sesan 2 Reservoir, Agriculture Land and Forest

This is the false colour infrared imagery of Landsat8 taken on December 2^nd, 2018 and the location is Lower Sensan 2 reservoir in Cambodia.  From the image, we can see a giant reservoir and based on the shape of the reservoir, we can identify that the water flows from the East to the West.  The surrounding environment of this reservoir is agriculture land and forest.

The waters vary from dark to light blue, the vegetation appears in shades of red. The red colour with parcel shape indicates healthy agriculture areas while the dark red represents forest land.  The urban areas are light cyan blue, and soils are light browns.

Source: Landsat8 Image with a false colour combination (5-4-3)