Landsat Portrait of America

To mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, the Landsat program has released a new portrait of the nation from space. The mosaic was built by analyzing billions of Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 pixels from the USGS Landsat archive. For each location, cloud-free observations collected during the growing season were compared, and the pixel that best represented typical conditions was selected to create the mosaic. The result was then draped over elevation data to add depth and contrast.