Landsat satellites have been gathering data for 48 years, equipping scientists and farmers to answer big questions about how to improve agriculture around the world. From tracking crop production, assessing crop health, and monitoring water use, Landsat data provides tangible benefits to the USA and the world. Landsat satellites are built and lauched by NASA, and operated by USGS. Complete transcript available.Music: "Lines of Enquiry" by Theo Golding [PRS], published by Atmosphere Music [PRS]Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. || LandsatAg-Thumbnail.png (1920x1080) [4.0 MB] || LandsatAg-Thumbnail_print.jpg (1024x576) [166.3 KB] || LandsatAg-Thumbnail_searchweb.png (320x180) [109.3 KB] || LandsatAg-Thumbnail_thm.png (80x40) [6.6 KB] || LandsatAg-FINAL.mov (1920x1080) [3.2 GB] || LandsatAg-FINAL_youtube_1080.mp4 (1920x1080) [148.1 MB] || LandsatAg-FINAL_facebook_720.mp4 (1280x720) [110.9 MB] || LandsatAg-FINAL_twitter_720.mp4 (1280x720) [20.1 MB] || LandsatAg-FINAL.webm (960x540) [39.3 MB] || LandsatAg-FINAL-captions.en_US.srt [1.8 KB] || LandsatAg-FINAL-captions.en_US.vtt [1.8 KB] ||

Beijing is one of the oldest, and now, one of the most crowded cities in the world. Established as a city in 1045 BC, King Wu was the first to declare it as a capital in 1057 BC. Having served as the capital of the Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, Beijing is now the capital of the People's Republic of China. In these Landsat images, the explosive growth of this ancient city is clearly visible. In 1972, only about 7.89 million people lived there — but by 2010 the population swelled to more than 12 million. This increase in the city's size corresponds to the opening of China to the Western world in the 1970s. Up until 1979, the government restricted housing in the city, limiting it to the confines of the "Outer City." Previously a walled fortress, its outline is still visible today due to the build up of canals and roads along the path of the original wall. Inside this rectangular boundary is the ancient heart of the capital, the moat-lined Forbidden City. Called forbidden because anyone entering needed royal permission, this is where the Imperial Palace still stands, once home to 500 years of Chinese emperors. It was Kublai Khan who established the Forbidden City in 1260 A.D. He called it Khanbaliq but Italian explorer Marco Polo called it Cambuluc. It still stands as Beijing's city center. In 1421 the Chinese took the city back and gave it its current name of Beijing. Today, Beijing is only limited by the rugged Taihang Mountains that run to the west and northwest of the city, pushing the population to spread to the south and east across the relatively flat coastal plain. ||

In May 1973, less than a year after the first of NASA's Landsat satellites was launched, Las Vegas, Nevada had a population of only 358,000. By 2006 the population had ballooned to over 2 million. Still one of America's fastest growing urban areas, this series of Landsat scenes from four different years shows just how dramamtic the growth of Las Vegas has been. ||

Excerpts of 14 short films about the NASA's Goddadrd Space Flight Center. ||

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission will continue the legacy of the 40-year Landsat program. This video examines two uses of Landsat data to monitor agriculture. Both wineries and timber companies rely on Landsat data to check whether their crops are getting enough (or too much) water and fertilizer.For complete transcript, click here. || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_ipod_lg.01727_print.jpg (1024x576) [21.4 KB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_ipod_lg_web.png (320x180) [19.5 KB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_ipod_lg_thm.png (80x40) [2.4 KB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_720x480.webmhd.webm (960x540) [53.6 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_ipod_lg.m4v (640x360) [42.5 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_ipod_sm.mp4 (320x240) [22.8 MB] || GSFC_20120927_Landsat_m11097_Users_Ag.en_US.srt [4.5 KB] || GSFC_20120927_Landsat_m11097_Users_Ag.en_US.vtt [4.3 KB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_youtube_hq.mov (1280x720) [133.3 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_appletv.m4v (960x540) [104.9 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_1280x720.wmv (1280x720) [120.8 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_prores.mov (1280x720) [3.5 GB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER.mov (640x360) [101.6 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_720x480.wmv (720x480) [112.3 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_youtube_hq.hwshow [65 bytes] ||

The Aral Sea is actually not a sea at all, but an immense fresh water lake. In the last thirty years, more than sixty percent of the lake has disappeared because much of the river flow feeding the lake was diverted to irrigate cotton fields and rice paddies. Concentrations of salts and minerals began to rise in the shrinking body of water, leading to staggering alterations in the lake's ecology and precipitous drops in the Aral's fish population. Powerful winds that blow across this part of Asia routinely pick up and deposit the now exposed lake bed soil. This has contributed to a significant reduction in breathable air quality, and crop yields have been appreciably affected due to heavily salt laden particles falling on arable land. This series of Landsat images taken in 1973, 1987 and 2000 show the profound reduction in overall area at the north end of the Aral, and a commensurate increase in land area as the floor of the sea now lies exposed. ||

This animation takes us on a tour around the Chesapeake Bay region visiting major city centers in the surrounding states: Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia. The imagery utilized for this animation is a false-color Chesapeake Bay Landsat-7 Mosaic (#3473) composed of eight scenes acquired between 1999-2002, which were put together and color corrected to resemble natural looking colors.The mosaic was created by EarthSat under contract with NASA as part of the GeoCover 2000 product. All images used in GeoCover were acquired by Landsat 7 during the period of 1999-2002. The pixel size of the full resolution image represents 14.25 m on the ground. The Chesapeake Bay mosaic uses portions of eight Landsat-7 scenes. Below you will find a listing of the eight Landsat 7 images that were put together to create the composite image. Landsat scenes are organized by a Path and Row number according to the Worldwide Reference System. (To learn more about Landsat's Worldwide Reference System, please visit: http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/about/wrs.html)Scenes used in the Chesapeake Bay mosaic: Landsat 7 WRS Path 15-Row 32 acquired on Oct. 05, 2001 Landsat 7 WRS Path 14-Row 32 acquired on Sept. 23, 1999 Landsat 7 WRS Path 15-Row 33 acquired on October 05, 2001 Landsat 7 WRS Path 14-Row 33 acquired on July 10, 2001 Landsat 7 WRS Path 15-Row 34 acquired on Sept. 30, 1999 Landsat 7 WRS Path 14-Row 34 acquired on July 10, 2001 Landsat 7 WRS Path 15-Row 35 acquired on Sept. 30, 1999 Landsat 7 WRS Path 14-Row 35 acquired on Sept. 23, 1999 ||

In the 1970s, Brazil's Program of National Integration built roads across the Amazon and settled land along these roads with colonists. These roads were catalysts of land use change in the Amazon.Brazil is also home to more than a quarter of Earth's tropical forests. Considering that the band of lush green that circles the globe through many equatorial nations is fundamental to the overall health of the whole planet's environment, careful monitoring of forest health in the tropics is essential. Tropical forests act as major carbon 'sinks', places where ambient carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be absorbed by growing things and sequestered for years. Definitive evidence shows that excess carbon dioxide can contribute to the greenhouse effect and speed global warming. Similarly, tropical forests also act as a primary producer of oxygen. In the respiration process that absorbs gaseous carbon dioxide, trees and other plants give off oxygen.Data taken in 1975 and 2009 from the Landsat series of spacecraft shows enormous tracts of forest disappearing in Rondonia, Brazil. ||

Beijing is one of the oldest, and now, one of the most crowded cities in the world. Established as a city in 1045 BC, King Wu was the first to declare it as a capital in 1057 BC. Having served as the capital of the Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, Beijing is now the capital of the People's Republic of China. In these Landsat images, the explosive growth of this ancient city is clearly visible. In 1972, only about 7.89 million people lived there — but by 2010 the population swelled to more than 12 million. This increase in the city's size corresponds to the opening of China to the Western world in the 1970s. Up until 1979, the government restricted housing in the city, limiting it to the confines of the "Outer City." Previously a walled fortress, its outline is still visible today due to the build up of canals and roads along the path of the original wall. Inside this rectangular boundary is the ancient heart of the capital, the moat-lined Forbidden City. Called forbidden because anyone entering needed royal permission, this is where the Imperial Palace still stands, once home to 500 years of Chinese emperors. It was Kublai Khan who established the Forbidden City in 1260 A.D. He called it Khanbaliq but Italian explorer Marco Polo called it Cambuluc. It still stands as Beijing's city center. In 1421 the Chinese took the city back and gave it its current name of Beijing. Today, Beijing is only limited by the rugged Taihang Mountains that run to the west and northwest of the city, pushing the population to spread to the south and east across the relatively flat coastal plain. ||

One of the many ways to keep FEMA maps up to date is by tracking urban change using satellite imagery. Take this suburb of Atlanta, Georgia as an example. By mining Landsat images spanning a 27 year period, it's possible to identify areas where the land surface has permanently changed and affect the areas ability to absorb water.The river to the Northwest is the Chattahoochee River. The "Y"-shaped roads are Interstate 85 (upper branch) and Route 316 (lower branch). As the years go by, one can see the Mall of Georgia being built in the upper middle part of the screen, immediately north of Interstate 85. Surrounding neighborhoods sprout up throughout this whole area as we move through time. This animation was created for use in a NASA video on water run-off changes related to urban sprawl titled "FEMA Risk Map". ||