Satellite Imagery
Written by Fraser Cain
Niagara Falls. Image credit: NASA
There are some incredible resources of satellite imagery on the internet. Even better, most of these images are totally free to access and download, to use for any purpose you like.
Probably the best place to get free satellite images is from Google Maps. This free service from Google lets you access satellite maps of the entire Earth in your browser. You get a cool map that you can drag around, and then zoom in and out down to the highest resolution images Google has for any point on Earth. Once you've got the spot you like, there's a printing function that lets you print off the satellite image.
An even better tool from Google for getting satellite imagery is Google Earth. It's very similar to Google Maps in that it shows you satellite pictures of Earth, but you install the application on your computer. But once you've got it going, the interface is really nice. And I like the printing functionality better than Google Maps.
If you don't want to use Google tools, there are similar services from both Microsoft and Yahoo.
Most of the best satellite imagery ever taken comes from NASA. They have many spacecraft in orbit right now, capturing images for scientific purposes. Two of the best resources are NASA's Earth Observatory site and the NASA Visible Earth site. Another great tool is NASA's Earth from Space. These are a collection of photographs of Earth taken by NASA astronauts. I guess you could consider an astronaut to be a kind of satellite.
Another cool resource from a private satellite company is Geoeye. This is the company that runs the satellite that provides exclusive images to Google for Google Maps and Google Earth. Its satellite can see with a resolution down to 0.5 meter. You can purchase high resolution images from them for any spot on Earth.
If you're tired of looking at satellite imagery of Earth, why not check out some images of other planets. How about the photos of Mars taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or images of Saturn take by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, or even images of Mercury taken by MESSENGER.
We have written many articles about satellite imagery for Universe Today. Here's an article about how you can watch satellite data in action, and another article about how you could launch your own personal satellite.
We've also recorded an entire episode of Astronomy Cast just about Earth. Listen here, Episode 51: Earth.
Filed under: Astronomy
Tags: earth from space, image, images, satellite, Satellites
