Introducing ASTER Version 4: What's New in Data Access, Products, Formats, and How to Unlock the ASTER Cloud Archive

This video is a recording of a previous webinar entitled: “Introducing ASTER Version 4: What’s New in Data Access, Products, Formats, and How to Unlock the ASTER Cloud Archive”. This webinar was recorded on April 2, 2026.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center maintains one of the largest civilian collection of images of the Earth’s land surface. At EROS we study land change and produce land change data products used by researchers, resource managers, and policy makers across the nation and around the world. The EROS User Services team provides assistance and outreach to help users in the data community access and work with data distributed from EROS. As part of the outreach effort, the EROS User Services team provides the EROS User Experience webinar series, where we talk to staff at EROS to learn more about the data, tools, and services provided by the USGS EROS. This webinar on Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Version 4 data was part of that series. 

The ASTER instrument aboard NASA’s Terra satellite has collected over 4.7 million observations since its launch in 2000. ASTER data helps advance research and applications for volcano monitoring, mineral and geologic mapping, topography, and land cover change. NASA’s Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) at the USGS EROS Center processes ASTER observations into 11 standard products that are archived within the Earthdata Cloud environment.

Key improvements in ASTER Version 4 include:

• Improved terrain correction and geolocation
• Updated atmospheric correction algorithms and ancillary input data sources
• Level-2 products delivered as Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF (COG), enabling efficient access and analysis in cloud-based, high-performance computing environments

ASTER is a cooperative effort between NASA, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and Japan Space Systems. 

This webinar covered product enhancements, new formats, changes in data access, and innovative ways to process and analyze ASTER data. Live demonstrations on accessing data in NASA Earthdata Seach, opening and working with the data in QGIS, and a walkthrough of the “Exploring ASTER L1T Radiance” Python script were provided.

Additional information and links related to this webinar:   

1. News alert on ASTER Version 4 Data Product Suite Released
2. Data Products:
   1. ASTER L1A Reconstructed Unprocessed Instrument Data V004- AST_L1A.004
   2. ASTER L1B Registered Radiance at the Sensor V004- AST_L1B.004
   3. ASTER Level 1 Precision Terrain Corrected Registered At-Sensor Radiance V004- AST_L1T.004
   4. ASTER L2 Surface Emissivity V004- AST_05.004
   5. ASTER L2 Surface Reflectance VNIR and SWIR V004- AST_07.004
   6. ASTER L2 Surface Reflectance VNIR and Crosstalk Corrected SWIR V004- AST_07XT.004
   7. ASTER L2 Surface Kinetic Temperature V004- AST_08.004
   8. ASTER L2 Surface Radiance VNIR and SWIR V004- AST_09.004
   9. ASTER L2 Surface Radiance TIR V004- AST_09T.004
   10. ASTER L2 Surface Radiance VNIR and Crosstalk Corrected SWIR V004- AST_09XT.004
   11. ASTER Digital Elevation Model V004- AST14DEM.004
3. The data are available for download through NASA’s Earthdata Search.
4. ASTER Spectral Bands
5. Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) webpage
6. Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) webpage
7. ASTER: Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer website. 
8. ASTER Data Resources on the LP DAAC GitHub
9. Subscribe to the LP DAAC listserv by sending a blank email to lpdaac-join@lists.nasa.gov.
10. Follow the USGS EROS on Social Media: 
    1. https://x.com/USGS_EROS
    2. https://www.facebook.com/USGSEROS
    3. https://www.instagram.com/usgs_eros/ 
11. Follow NASA Earth on Social Media:
    1. https://www.facebook.com/nasaearth
    2. https://www.instagram.com/nasaearth/ 
    3. https://x.com/nasaearth

To join the EROS User Group and sign up to be notified of future webinars in this series, please visit: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/eros/science/eros-user-group.