Eyes on Earth Episode 133 – Vietnam War Bomb Craters
No longer used for spying, declassified spy satellite imagery is finding fascinating new uses.
Summary: Declassified spy satellite imagery, distributed by the USGS EROS Center, is finding fascinating uses since being made available to the public starting in the 1990s. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk with Philipp Barthelme from the University of Edinburgh, who used imagery from the declassified HEXAGON and CORONA satellites to map bomb craters and herbicide spray lines from the Vietnam War. These features appear in the black and white photos quite clearly, so Barthelme worked out machine learning methods to automatically detect them. This method can help narrow down where to search for unexploded weapons and focus on the areas that are most contaminated.
Guest: Philipp Barthelme, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Host: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)
Producer: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)
Release date: Monday, April 14, 2025
Download and Transcript Access
More about Declassified Satellite Imagery and Barthelme’s Studies
- Barthelme’s journal article
- Blog post about Barthelme’s Agent Orange study
- USGS EarthExplorer
- The Last Bucket Catch
- Catch a Falling Star
- Sample HEXAGON image from Barthelme’s study
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Eyes on Earth Episode 93 – EROS 50th: Film Scanning
Working with film has always been part of EROS’ 50-year history. How did EROS end up with an extensive film archive, and how are we making that data available to users? In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk about the custom scanners built in-house from discarded parts to digitally capture historical aerial photos and declassified spy satellite images. These Phoenix systems have scanned...
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Eyes on Earth Episode 86 - Tours at EROS
The USGS EROS Center is the home of the Landsat satellite archive. This data center and science center located on a former farm near Sioux Falls, SD, is one of the largest civilian archives of land imaging in the world. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we discuss what visitors to EROS will learn on a tour, including examples of land change seen by Landsat and why EROS is located where it is. Find...
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Eyes on Earth Episode 5 – Declassified Data at EROS
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No longer used for spying, declassified spy satellite imagery is finding fascinating new uses.
Summary: Declassified spy satellite imagery, distributed by the USGS EROS Center, is finding fascinating uses since being made available to the public starting in the 1990s. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk with Philipp Barthelme from the University of Edinburgh, who used imagery from the declassified HEXAGON and CORONA satellites to map bomb craters and herbicide spray lines from the Vietnam War. These features appear in the black and white photos quite clearly, so Barthelme worked out machine learning methods to automatically detect them. This method can help narrow down where to search for unexploded weapons and focus on the areas that are most contaminated.
Guest: Philipp Barthelme, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Host: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)
Producer: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)
Release date: Monday, April 14, 2025
Download and Transcript Access
More about Declassified Satellite Imagery and Barthelme’s Studies
- Barthelme’s journal article
- Blog post about Barthelme’s Agent Orange study
- USGS EarthExplorer
- The Last Bucket Catch
- Catch a Falling Star
- Sample HEXAGON image from Barthelme’s study
Related Episodes
-
-
Eyes on Earth Episode 93 – EROS 50th: Film Scanning
Working with film has always been part of EROS’ 50-year history. How did EROS end up with an extensive film archive, and how are we making that data available to users? In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk about the custom scanners built in-house from discarded parts to digitally capture historical aerial photos and declassified spy satellite images. These Phoenix systems have scanned...
-
Eyes on Earth Episode 86 - Tours at EROS
The USGS EROS Center is the home of the Landsat satellite archive. This data center and science center located on a former farm near Sioux Falls, SD, is one of the largest civilian archives of land imaging in the world. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we discuss what visitors to EROS will learn on a tour, including examples of land change seen by Landsat and why EROS is located where it is. Find...
-
Eyes on Earth Episode 5 – Declassified Data at EROS
There’s a lot more than Landsat in the EROS Archive. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear from a professor who’s mined satellite data collected during once-classified military missions to peer into the history of land use in Eastern Europe during the height of the Cold War.
-