01 October 2004

The blue marble

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites is providing high quality measurements of smoke, dust, pollution and water vapor suspended in the atmosphere. MODIS also provides high quality images of Earth.

The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has used MODIS imagery to assemble the most detailed image of the entire Earth. The images have a resolution of one square kilometer (around 0.39 square mile).

Citizen scientists, educators, students and anyone else can see the resulting images of NASA's Blue Marble at GSFC's Earth Observatory web site. The site links to images up to 21,600 pixels across.

The Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Photograph courtesy of NASA. Click image to enlarge.

The Grand Canyon of Arizona. Photograph courtesy of NASA. Click image to enlarge.

High quality satellite imagery can be used by serious student and amateur scientists to study clouds and weather systems. Sequences of seasonal views can permit sophisticated studies of agriculture, fires, snow cover and the onset of spring and fall.

Forrest M. Mims III