Landsat 9 in orbit: NASA’s satellite will study Earth and climate change

The Tera He has a brand new Extraordinary Monitor, which is fundamental to control its territory: he is called Landsat 9, an updated version of the previous model – Landsat 8, as it was easy to guess Even Google has clicked on it in the past To provide users with more detailed and clear non-cloud images of the planet. missile Launch Alliance Atlas V della United With the satellite on board, it launched successfully two days ago at 14:12 EDT (20:12 in Italy) from Complex 3E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first signals were received on the ground from the Svalbard station.

The United States, along with international partners, will use the data collected by Landsat 9 and Very rich database acquired over the years (The first Landsat satellite dates back to 1972) for Study of our planet and its evolution over time, land use, forests, glaciers and climate change. “Landsat 9 will provide data and images to help make science-based decisions on key issues such as water use, the impact of fires, coral reef degradation, glacier and ice shelf retreat, and tropical deforestation.US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland explained.

Landsat 9 is equipped with advanced equipment such asOperational Ground Imaging 2 (OLI-2) and 2 . thermal infrared sensor (TIRS-2), capable of measuring 11 wavelengths of light reflected or emitted from the planet’s surface in both the visible spectrum and at wavelengths that the human eye cannot see. Each image captures an area of ​​185 km, and each pixel represents an area of ​​30 m in diameter.

Thus, the data will be used forKnowledge, forecasting and planning for the future in the era of climate changeKaren Saint-Germain from the Department of Earth Sciences identified NASA. Landsat 9 will not replace Landsat 8 at all, in fact it will join it in A orbit 705 kilometers from the earth To send more and more data: The two satellites, in pairs, are expected to be able to provide images of the planet every 8 days. added to these ESA’s Sentinel-2 satellites, who will work in coordination with those at NASA to constantly track what is happening on Earth.

Images provided by Landsat and related data are publicly available. For more information and to download the materials, please refer to the link in SOURCE.