Mount St. Helens and its surrounding area continue to recover from the explosive eruption of May 1980. Shades of white and gray indicate still-bare slopes; dark “rivers” are deep channels cut by fast-moving flows of hot ash, rock and gas. Green represents regrowth of vegetation.

Two images from Landsat  satellites are included in the new U.S Post Office series of 15 Earthscapes Forever stamps. Released October 1 to kick off National Stamp Collecting Month, the stamps vividly portray America’s diverse landscapes as viewed from heights of several hundred feet above the Earth to several hundred miles in space.

“Once you’ve seen the world from above, you never look at it quite the same way again,” said U.S. Postal Service Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Joseph Corbett, Washington. “That’s why the Postal Service is proud to offer these Earthscapes stamps, which invite us to take a bird’s eye view of the land we all share.”

The Landsat Program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and NASA. Remote-sensing satellites, such as the Landsat series, help scientists to observe the world beyond the power of human sight, to monitor changes, and to detect critical trends in the conditions of natural resources. USGS conducts the daily operations of the Landsat 5 and 7 satellites.

Earthscapes

The Earthscapes collection presents examples of three broad categories of the way that human actions intersect with the land — natural, agricultural, and urban. The colorfully patterned portraits were all created high above the planet’s surface, either carefully composed by photographers in aircraft or routinely imaged by Landsat  satellites while orbiting the Earth at an altitude of over 400 miles.

Each stamp, within its limited amount of space, represents only a stylized fragment of a geographical area, which may or may not be typical of a particular region. Still, they offer stamp customers an opportunity to see the world in a new way.

The two stamps that feature Landsat images — Volcanic Crater and Center-pivot irrigation — depict a natural disaster site, Mount Saint Helens, and an agricultural practice that is common in the Garden City, Kansas area.

Volcanic Crater

Mount St. Helens and surrounding area recover from the historic May 1980 eruption. Shades of white and gray indicate still-bare slopes that were swept by volcanic flows; light green areas at the top of the photo show re-growth of vegetation in devastated areas; dark green areas at the bottom were unaffected by the eruption.

Center-pivot irrigation

Circular patterns on Kansas cropland show center-pivot sprinkler systems have been at work. Red circles indicate healthy, irrigated crops; lighter circles represent harvested crops. Corn, wheat, alfalfa, soybeans, and grain sorghum account for most of the irrigated acreage in Kansas.

A Long View from Space

Two images from the Landsat 7 satellite were included in the U.S Post Office series of 15 Earthscapes Forever stamps released Oct. 1, 2012.

Remote-sensing satellites, such as the Landsat series, help scientists to observe the world beyond the power of human sight, to monitor changes, and to detect critical trends in the conditions of natural resources. Data supplied by Landsat supports the improvement of human and environmental health, energy and water management, urban planning, disaster recovery, and crop monitoring.

USGS archives and distributes the massive amount of Earth observation data that has been collected by the Landsat satellite series since 1972. This extended record — now four decades long — forms an impartial, comprehensive, and easily accessed register of human and natural changes on the land.

Earth as Art

Beyond the scientific information they confer, some Landsat images are simply striking to look at, as illustrated in the Earthscapes collection.  In fact, among the millions of freely accessible Landsat images, many present spectacular views of mountains, valleys, and islands; forests, grasslands, and agricultural patterns.  By selecting certain features and coloring them from a digital palate, the USGS has created a series of Earth as Art perspectives that demonstrate an artistic resonance in land imagery and provide a special avenue of insight about the geography of each scene.

As part of the Landsat 40^th Anniversary Celebration this summer, the USGS and NASA held an online contest in which more 14,000 people voted on their Top Five favorite Earth as Art images.

On the horizon

NASA is preparing to launch the next Landsat satellite, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), on February 11, 2013, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. LDCM will be the most technologically advanced satellite in the Landsat series. LDCM sensors take advantage of evolutionary advances in detector and sensor technologies to improve performance and increase reliability. Once it successfully achieves orbit, LDCM will join the Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 satellites as Landsat 8 to continue the Landsat data record.

Links and resources

USGS Landsat

NASA Landsat

Earth as Art Image Gallery

History and overview of the Landsat program (nontechnical)

The world’s longest-running Earth-observing satellite program — Landsat — turns 40.

The world’s longest-running Earth-observing satellite program — Landsat — is 40 years old.

NASA — working in cooperation with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and its science agency, the USGS — launched the first Landsat satellite on July 23, 1972. The resulting 40-year archive of Earth observations from the Landsat fleet forms an impartial, comprehensive, and easily accessed register of human and natural changes on the land.

Remote-sensing satellites, such as the Landsat series, help scientists to observe the world beyond the power of human sight, to monitor changes, and to detect critical trends in the conditions of natural resources. Data supplied by Landsat supports the improvement of human and environmental health, energy and water management, urban planning, disaster recovery, and crop monitoring.

Through 40 years of continuous coverage, the Landsat series of Earth observation satellites has become a fundamental global reference for scientific issues related to land use and natural resources. Landsat is valued all over the world as the gold standard of land observation. No other satellite program, in our nation or in any other country, comes close to having the historical length and breadth, the continuity and the coverage, of the Landsat archive.

A Versatile Perspective

Landsat satellites can give us a view as broad as 12,000 square miles per scene while characterizing land cover in units the size of a baseball diamond. In one instant look from over 400 miles in space, a single Landsat scene can record the condition of hundreds of thousands of acres of grassland, agricultural crops, or forests.

A comparison of the images illustrates the significant growth in the greater D.C. area. Major urban development can be seen the surrounding communities of Rockville, Greenbelt, and Suitland, Maryland. The expanded Woodrow Wilson Bridge, connecting Springfield, Virginia, with Oxon Hill, Maryland, is evident. The record of surface change is used by urban planners and local officials to evaluate the rate and direction of growth in the area.

Landsat images from space are not just pictures. They contain many layers of data collected at different points along the visible and invisible light spectrum. Consequently, Landsat images can show where vegetation is thriving and where it is stressed, where droughts are occurring, where wildland fire is a danger, and where erosion has altered coastlines or river courses.

Landsat images reveal subtle, gradual changes, such as Wyoming rangelands greening up after a drought, as well as massive landscape changes that occur in rapidly growing urban areas. Landsat can also provide inexpensive assessments of sudden natural or human-induced disasters, such as the number of acres charred by a forest fire or the extent of tsunami inundation.

Impartial information freely available

The Department of the Interior’s policy of releasing the full Landsat archive at no cost allows everyone to have access to this important resource, allowing researchers in the private sector and at universities to generate even more data applications — applications that serve commercial endeavors in agriculture and forestry, that enable land managers in and out of government to work more efficiently, and that define and tackle critical environmental issues.

Landsat and innovation

Landsat has sparked innovation in Earth systems research and in commercial applications of the data from its inception in the mid-1960s.  Since 2008, when Landsat images were made available free of charge, there has been a remarkable burst of innovative science applications of the data.

For example, Landsat data played a central role in an award-winning type of mapping that tracks water use. Using Landsat imagery supplied by USGS in combination with ground-based water data, the Idaho Department of Water Resources and the University of Idaho developed a novel method to create water-use maps that are accurate to the scale of individual fields. Water-use maps help save taxpayer money by increasing the accuracy and effectiveness of public decisions involving water — for instance, in monitoring compliance with legal water rights. In 2009, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University cited Idaho’s original design for these maps as an outstanding innovation in American government.

The National Land Cover Database (NLCD 2006) produced by USGS and the federal interagency Multi‑Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium (MRLC) from Landsat imagery is a massive database that describes the surface condition of each 30-meter cell of land in the conterminous U.S. One such cell is approximately the area of a baseball diamond. The range and accuracy of the database enables land managers, urban planners, agricultural experts, and scientists with many different interests (for instance, climate change or invasive species) to identify critical characteristics of the land for a wide variety of investigations.

In the beginning

By the mid-1960s, some civilian geologists, geographers, and agronomists were familiar with imaging potential of classified Earth-observing satellites and had also studied the surprisingly detailed land-surface photos taken by early astronauts using hand-held cameras.

In 1966, with NASA still heavily committed to the Apollo Program in preparation for what would be a 1969 moon landing, the USGS convinced Interior Secretary Stewart Udall to hold a press conference announcing Interior’s new Project EROS, the acronym for Earth Resources Observation Satellites, and, furthermore, that Interior’s first satellite would launch in 1969!

In a statement that echoes true to this day, Udall said, “…the time is now right and urgent to apply space technology towards the solution of many pressing natural resources problems being compounded by population and industrial growth.” This bold announcement succeeded as a catalyst for what eventually became the world’s first civilian land-imaging satellite, developed by NASA and launched on July 23, 1972.

Six years earlier, Udall had said the satellite would be “…just the beginning of a great decade in land and resource analysis for a burgeoning population.”  Today we celebrate not one but four great decades in Earth science from space.

USGS created the “Earth as Art” series to provide a unique avenue of insight about the geography of selected Landsat scenes that have an artistic resonance. This image is titled “Malaspina Glacier.” The tongue of the Malaspina Glacier, the largest glacier in Alaska, fills most of this image. The Malaspina lies west of Yakutat Bay and covers 1,500 sq mi (3,880 sq km).

On the horizon

NASA is preparing to launch the next Landsat satellite, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), on February 11, 2013, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. LDCM will be the most technologically advanced satellite in the Landsat series. LDCM sensors take advantage of evolutionary advances in detector and sensor technologies to improve performance and increase reliability. Once it successfully achieves orbit, LDCM will join the Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 satellites as Landsat 8 to continue the Landsat data record.

Join the celebration

NASA and USGS held a news conference,  July 23, to highlight the accomplishments of the Landsat program at the Newseum in Washington, DC.

NASA Television and the NASA website provided live briefing coverage and will maintain archived video of the event. Visit NASA TV or NASA Goddard Multimedia.

For information about “Landsat at 40” anniversary features:

• 10 most significant images from the Landsat record;
• U.S. regions selected for the “My American Landscape” contest;
• announcement of the top five Landsat “Earth As Art” images,visit NASA Landsat.

For details about the Landsat program, including current operations and situational updates, visit USGS Landsat.

Ice Waves. Along the southeastern coast of Greenland, an intricate network of fjords funnels glacial ice to the Atlantic Ocean. Landsat 7 Image.

During a span of 40 years, since 1972, the Landsat series of Earth observation satellites has become a vital reference worldwide for understanding scientific issues related to changes on the Earth’s surface.

To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Landsat, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) would like your help in selecting the top five “Earth as Art” images from the more than 120 images in the collection.

The poll is now open and will close on July 6.

Learn more and get details on how to cast your vote.

The top five “Earth as Art” images will be announced on July 23 in Washington, D.C. at a special event commemorating the launch of the first Landsat satellite.

Information as Art

Built by NASA and operated by the USGS, Landsat satellites supply Earth scientists, land-resource managers, and policy makers with objective data about changes across the global landscape. Some changes, like major floods or volcanic eruptions, come quickly; others, like urban sprawl or regrowth from forest fires, appear gradually. Landsat impartially records these and many other changes to the land that are induced by people or nature.

Beyond the scientific information they confer, some Landsat images are simply striking to look at — presenting spectacular views of mountains, valleys, and islands; forests, grasslands, and agricultural patterns. By selecting certain features and coloring them from a digital palate, the USGS has created a series of “Earth as Art” perspectives that demonstrate an artistic resonance in land imagery and provide a special avenue of insight about the geography of each scene.

NASA is preparing to launch the next Landsat satellite in 2013, which will be turned over to USGS for operations and data distribution.

The Lena River, some 2,800 miles (4,500km) long, is one of the largest rivers in the world. The Lena Delta Reserve is the most extensive protected wilderness area in Russia. It is an important refuge and breeding grounds for many species of Siberian wildlife. Landsat 7 Image.

More Information

Earth as Art Image Gallery

Earth as Art at the Library of Congress (exhibit extended through August 31, 2012)

USGS Landsat

NASA Landsat

Contest URL:  http://eros.usgs.gov/eaa_voting/

This stretch of Iceland's northern coast resembles a tiger's head complete with stripes of orange, black, and white. The tiger's mouth is the great Eyjafjorour, a deep fjord that juts into the mainland between steep mountains. The name means "island fjord," derived from the tiny, tear-shaped Hrisey Island near its mouth. The ice-free port city of Akureyri lies near the fjord's narrow tip, and is Iceland's second largest population center after the capital, Reykjavik. Landsat 7 Image.