IMAGERY IN YOUR WORLD

Big Monitor

   Thomson, which is known for its hardware for media and entertainment companies, with assistance from Purdue engineers, has put together an immense computer screen. The 11.7 foot wide by 6.7 foot high monitor, with very high resolution, is aimed at, among others, large teams of scientists or emergency management personnel who might look at maps or detailed imagery together. The prototype uses four separate projectors to display a single image onto the large screen. The projections are blended together so that no seams are visible.

Imagery for Developing Nations

   GeoNetwork’s InterMap viewer, developed jointly by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) is a decision resource for leaders in developing nations battling poverty and hunger. The system lets those with Internet access tap into databases from all over the world to produce thematic (color classified) maps combining information on soil, population density, and vegetation. GeoNetwork is an initiative aimed at making FAO resources about such topics as agriculture, forestry, fisheries and food security available to those on the ground in challenged areas. The system uses open source software to make the program easily accessible, updatable and shareable.

City Heat Means Longer Urban Growing Season

   A NASA-funded study reveals that cities create warmer conditions that cause plants to stay green longer each year, compared to surrounding rural areas. Boston University researchers studied data from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument onboard the Terra satellite to learn that city climates have a noticeable influence on plant growing seasons up to 10 kilometers (six miles) away from a city's edges. Growing seasons in 70 cities in eastern North America were about 15 days longer in urban areas compared to rural areas outside of a city’s influence. The researchers used MODIS surface reflectance data to measure seasonal changes in plant growth for the entire year of 2001.

New Acquisition Center in South Africa

   South Africa cut the ribbon on the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Satellite Application Centre which will acquire and distribute Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Landsat imagery. Perhaps most important to the country’s neighbors, South Africa announced it would be supplying free satellite imagery to all members of the Southern

African Development Community. The data is expected to help with planning and response in agriculture, fire management, and environmental issues.

Identifying Agricultural Outlaws

   The European Union (EU) is looking for agricultural outlaws, with the help of remotely sensed imagery. EU farmers are entitled to subsidies based on the size of their fields. In past years it’s estimated that ?100 million (US $125 million) was handed over for fields that simply didn't exist. To save that money, the EU began a program called Monitoring Agriculture with Remote Sensing or MARS. It's designed to keep better track of the size of fields via GPS and next year, high resolution photography. With a number of new member countries with large farming populations joining the EU, notably Poland, the program hopes to prevent errors. Reports suggest that in Italy, crop estimates were commonly off by a factor of two.

Earth Observation System of Systems

   The Global Earth Observation System of Systems, the latest attempt to network sensor data acquired on land, in the air and in the water, has nearly 50 countries listed as participants. At launch the network is expected to tap into 10,000 manned and automated weather stations, 1,000 buoys and 100,000 daily observations by 7,000 ships and 3,000 aircraft. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration leads the effort. The international coalition’s ten-year plan is expected in February of next year. The data system is expected to impact decision making for agriculture, health, and other global issues.

Monster Waves Confirmed

   The European Commission initiative called MaxWave wrapped up at the end of last year. Its goal was to confirm the existence of large, potentially damaging waves, in the open seas. Such waves were detected by ocean-based radar sensors on oil platforms and may be responsible for sinking large ships. Their existence has been confirmed using satellite-based radar systems hosted on European Space Agency satellites. Studies of data collected during a three-week period around the sinking of two large ships revealed more than ten individual giant waves around the globe that were more than 25 meters high. A new program, WaveAtlas, will document the rouge waves and provide analysis. The hope is to learn more to help predict occurrences and protect vessels.

A New Satellite for India

   Cartosat-I should be in orbit by the first quarter of next year. Its sensor can cover 30 km in a single image (up to 1:5000 scale) and will be collecting stereoscopic data for the development of terrain models. That’s of particular importance to defense officials, though the main goal of the satellite is to enhance cartography, as its name suggests. The Indian Space Research Organization’s bird will cover the country in 24 months. Cartosat-I weighs in at 1500 kg and will travel 617 km above the earth with an expected lifespan of 5-6 years. Currently the Surveyor General uses imagery from foreign sources for mapping. A second, higher resolution Cartosat is already planned.

Smart Satellites

   One of the great things about imaging satellites is that they capture imagery of things operators “tell them” to image. That’s also one of the challenges for the recipients. Satellites typically send back all the data they have, all at once. Unlike a newspaper, or the evening TV news, the satellite can’t help filter out or prioritize the raw data. That is, until now. Scientists at the Arizona State University and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have developed a system to help sensors “figure out” what’s important and send back that information first. The sensor is given imagery of “the normal state” of affairs for an area. When it captures a new image, it compares the two. If there’s a significant change, say water where there was none, the sensor can capture more data about the area and alert those on the ground.

   The project, called Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment is under development for NASA’s EO-1 satellite, but has already shown its stuff in the lab. It found a flood on the Diamantina River in Australia. The short-term goal is to use the system to record transient events including volcanic eruptions, floods, and changes in ice fields on Earth, but in time ASE may find itself looking at Mars or other planets in the solar system.

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