From the distant reaches of the Universe, to black holes, and the Martian surface, NASA explores some of the most far out parts of space. But NASA also does research much closer to home. In fact, NASA Earth Science satellites are taking part in the management and recovery of an ecosystem right in our backyard, the Chesapeake Bay. ||

Still observing the Earth after 25 years—22 beyond its three-year primary mission lifetime—Landsat 5 collects valuable scientific data daily. Some attribute the satellite's longevity to over-engineering. Others say it's a long run of good luck. Whatever the reason, no one who attended the satellite's March 1984 launch could have expected it would still be working today.For complete transcript, click here. || Landsat5_turns_25_ipodLG.00202_print.jpg (1024x576) [73.2 KB] || Landsat5_turns_25_ipodLG_web.png (320x180) [149.4 KB] || Landsat5_turns_25_ipodLG_thm.png (80x40) [13.9 KB] || Landsat5_turns_25_appletv.webmhd.webm (960x540) [51.8 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_appletv.m4v (960x540) [87.6 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_YouTube.mov (1280x720) [56.6 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_fullresH264.mov (1280x720) [119.3 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_ipodLG.m4v (640x360) [42.3 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_svsSM.mpg (512x288) [32.8 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_ipodSM.m4v (320x180) [16.4 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_NASAcast.mp4 (320x236) [30.9 MB] || GSFC_20090227_Landsat5turns25.wmv (346x260) [30.5 MB] ||

In 2007, more than 1,100 Landsat 7 images were used to create the first ever, high-resolution, true color map of Antarctica. The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA) is a virtually cloud-free, 3-D view of Antarctica's frozen landscape produced by NASA, working with the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey and the British Antarctic Survey.Visualizers stitched together Landsat 7 satellite imagery acquired in 1999 and 2001 with a digital elevation model and field data measurements. ||

Agriculture consumes a great deal of water. As demand for water increases, the pressure's on to make sure every drop counts. ||

The Thermal InfraRed Sensor (TIRS) is one of the instruments on the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) satellite. It will continue the archive of thermal imaging and support emerging applications such as evapotranspiration rate measurements for water management. TIRS is being built by NASA GSFC and has a three-year design life.In February 2012, TIRS was shipped from GSFC to Orbital Sciences Corporation in Gilbert, Arizona to be integrated with the LDCM spacecraft.TIRS operates in a pushbroom mode to create images in two IR bands, centered at 10.8 and 12.0 microns, over a 185 km swath with a 100 m spatial resolution. The TIRS design includes cryogenically-cooled QWIP detector arrays and a steerable mirror to choose among 3 views: nadir for Earth observations, on-board warm blackbody for calibration, and deep space for calibration. The TIRS data will be registered to the OLI data to create radiometrically, geometrically, and terrain-corrected 12-bit LDCM data products. ||

A water-rich polka dot pattern takes over the traditional rectangular patchwork of fields in this 40 year sequence of Landsat images showing the dry Texas panhandle near the town of Dalhart. In this series, vegetation appears red and the bare soil of fallow fields or sparsely vegetated grasslands appear white to green. The blue-gray X near the center of the images marks the town of Dalhart. ||

Many non-profits are using Landsat as a tool to identify and protect areas that are important for conservation. This video shows how The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) has used Landsat in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to protect a wildlife corridor in the Maringa Lopori Wanga (MLW) region. This area is located in the northern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) immediately south of the Congo River. Within its borders are two major reserves: The Lomako-Yokokala Faunal Reserve and the Luo Scientific Reserve. Wildlife travels between these two reserves via a natural wildlife corridor. With Landsat, the AWF identified this corridor as a critical area for conservation and then began working with the DRC government and local communities to map the region. This process has had and will have significant impact on land use planning and zoning in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. ||

A combination of lightning, drought and human activity caused fires to scorch more than one-third of Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1988. Within a year, burn scars cast a sharp outline on the 793,880 acres affected by fire, distinguishing wide sections of recovering forest, meadows, grasslands and wetlands from unburned areas of the park. After more than two decades, satellite instruments can still detect these scars from space.In the time-lapse video below, a series of false-color images collected by USGS-NASA Landsat satellites from 1987 to 2018 show the burning and gradual regeneration of Yellowstone's forests following the 1988 fire season. Watch as burn scars (dark red) quickly replace large expanses of healthy green vegetation (dark green) by 1989. Notice how the scars slowly fade over time as new vegetation begins to grow and heal the landscape.Landsat Project Scientist Jeff Masek has been studying the recovery of the forest after the 1988 Yellowstone fires. In the video below, he talks about how Landsat satellites detect the burn scars from space and distinguish them from healthy, un-burned forest and from new growth. ||

On Friday, July 20th, in advance of Landsat's 40th birthday and a live NASA press conference on Monday the 23rd, NASA scientists are available to discuss amazing & unprecedented images from space of your region. Cities grow, wildfires rage, rivers flood out of their beds and droughts shrink lakes and reservoirs — all captured by Landsat, the world's longest continuous record of Earth from space. Since 1972, Landsat satellites have been orbiting Earth, telling the story of soil moisture, urban spread, land use, assist disasters & recovery. Next year, the 8th Landsat satellite (LDCM) will be launched from California. The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) will track food production and water resources, organize disaster recovery and monitor the impact of climate change.The following is broadcast quality video roll-ins in Apple ProRes 422, 1280x720, 59.94 fps. ||

The Landsat program is the longest continuous global record of Earth observations from space — ever. On July 23, 1972 NASA launched the first satellite in this program, then known as ERTS, the Earth Resources Technology Satellite and later renamed Landsat 1. In honor of that history, NASA edited together selections of an archive video from 1973 about the ERTS launch.Featured in this 1973 video was a senior geologist at NASA, Nicholas Short, and at Dartmouth College, Robert Simpson and David Lindgren. NASA and the U.S. Department of the Interior through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) jointly manage Landsat, and the USGS preserves a nearly 50-year archive of Landsat data that is freely available over the Internet. The next Landsat satellite, known as Landsat 9, is scheduled for launch in 2021.For more information about Landsat visit www.nasa.gov/landsat, or landsat.usgs.govTo watch the entire 23-minute long NASA archive video of the ERTS Launch, go here. ||