A variety of man-made objects have been sent into outer space for decades, and as a very large and distinguished group, they have sent back important data. NASA has been at the forefront of these efforts here in the United States, and the Landsat Program has certainly been quite successful since its inception in the early 1970s. This website provides a wealth of information on the Landsat Program,...
"ICESat (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite) is the benchmark Earth Observing System mission for measuring ice sheet mass balance, cloud and aerosol heights, as well as land topography and vegetation characteristics." Visitors can learn how the data being collected can assist in answering many climatic questions including the impacts ice sheets can have on sea level and the affects of polar...
As part of NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, the Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry specializes in the analysis of satellite altimeter data related to problems in physical oceanography and marine geophysics. The Web site provides links to currently active projects with information such as near-real time sea level altimeter data, historical data, European Space...
The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) operates POES, the Polar Operational Environmental Satellite system. Comprised of several components (namely, the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and the Tiros Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS)), these satellites make nearly polar orbits daily, providing global coverage of land, ocean, and atmospheric data. The POES...
By creating infrared images of the Earth with a spatial resolution of one kilometer, the Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) instruments are beneficial for land, atmosphere, water, and Cryosphere scientific studies. After learning about the sensitivities and accuracies of the ATSR instruments, students and educators can view a presentation describing the usefulness of the collected data. The...
In an effort to disseminate information from the TOPEX/ Poseidon satellite project, the Center for Space Research and the Texas Space Grant Consortium have developed the TOPEX/ Poseidon Kids Page. This online activity for younger students explains through simple descriptions and fun illustrations how the satellite measures the height of the ocean. Additional pages include an online quiz, a...