On August 17, someone who wanted to see how the Earth looks from 440 miles away in space downloaded the one-millionth Landsat satellite image scene from a U.S. Geological Survey web site at its Earth Resources Observation and Science Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Since the USGS opened its full Landsat archive to user access at no charge last October, the response from across the nation and around the globe has grown exponentially.
One development of particular note is that the very oldest data in the archive, dating to over three decades ago, is being downloaded at unprecedented levels – with land-surface change detection emerging as a primary use of Landsat data.
Landsat 1 was launched on July 23, 1972, and subsequent Landsat missions have continually acquired land-image data across the globe. Scientists, educators, and the general public use these data for a wide array of activities ranging from supporting disaster relief efforts to making agricultural crop assessments to identifying sites for cell phone towers.
Landsat scenes can be previewed and downloaded through the USGS Global Visualization Viewer or USGS EarthExplorer.
