New findings from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.
Mississippi Swampland Seen from Space
This Sentinel-2A ˜color vision' image captures part of the Mississippi swamps on the east and west banks of the Mississippi River, south of New Orleans and north of the Mississippi Delta. The red color shows vegetation, while gray represents bodies of water.
Earth-Observation Market Reports Released
A pair of Earth-observation industry market reports were published almost simultaneously in September 2015, and both were optimistic as to the current and future states of satellite-based remote sensing.
Drones Monitor Chimpanzee Habitat in Tanzania
Ecologist Jeff Kerby is using Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs), or drones, to count chimpanzee nests and monitor their habitat in Tanzania's Ugalla Forest. Such counts typically are performed on foot, but UASs allowed researchers to cover a much larger area at reduced time and cost.
New Smallsat Technologies Targeted for Wildfire Response
Aquila Space is building briefcase-sized satellites that can capture and send back images of more than 12 million square miles of Earth daily. Meanwhile, its Silicon Valley partner Astro Digital is developing software that allows anyone to process and analyze the data.
University Coalition Developing UASs to Improve Weather Forecasting
Oklahoma State University (OSU) as well as the universities of Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kentucky will share a $6 million, four-year grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) that improves weather forecasting by studying atmospheric physics.
EU Conducting Unmanned Disaster-Monitoring Flights
The European Union has been conducting simulated flood-disaster situations monitored by Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) technology. The Driving Innovations in Crisis Management for European Resilience (DRIVER) project features a D-CODE research aircraft, a Do-228, circling over the simulated disaster, taking situational images in real time, which rescue workers can use to coordinate the disaster response.
How Many Trees Are on Earth?
According to a tally by an international team of scientists, there are roughly 3 trillion trees on Earth”more than seven times the number previously estimated. The study also finds that approximately 15 billion trees are cut down each year; since the onset of agriculture about 12,000 years ago, the number of trees worldwide has dropped by 46 percent.
Scientists Calling for Better Methods to Track Global Biodiversity from Space
A collection of worldwide scientists are calling for a global strategy to monitor Earth's biodiversity from space. As biodiversity loss intensifies, traditional means to track biodiversity aren't keeping up, so satellite remote sensing is seen as the key.
Neutrino Map Exposes Nuclear Activity
A map published in Nature Scientific Reports shows what the world would look like if we could see the trillions of neutrinos that emanate from the surface of the planet each second. Dark spots on the map indicate nuclear reactors and parts of Earth's crust rich with radioactive uranium and thorium, which emit neutrinos when they decay.
