Earth explorer Introduction
Earth Explorer as the name suggests is an earth browser i.e. using it you can view images of any part of earth just sitting in front of computer. It is specially designed for the common people and therefore using is very simple. It provides various types of images and along with it some useful data as well. Therefore you can use it for knowing about any part of earth.
The images obtained through earth Explorer are fully interactive. You can browse to any part of the earth, you can zoom in over there to view the further details, or again zoom out when you want to go to some other place, etc. you can also go directly to a place by just entering its name, or coordinate data, etc.
Earth explorer can be directly used as an online product to view the different parts of the world. However you can also register yourself as its member and thus login every time you want to use it. You will be able to access some more of its features if you do so.
Earth explorer has some data sets which play an important role in the display of the different types of images. You can find the different data sets available at the data set selection page. You can choose one of the data set and on choosing it; you can again search for another data set. In this way you will be able to use the data two or more data sets as well.
The special coverage areas will offer you three options for defining your area of interest prior to you begin to search against the data sets. Note that it is not important to enter the spatial coverage before you execute a search.
The three options available to you are as given below.
The reference map would allow you to draw a rectangle or a point.
The US/ world feature search is an option on which you can click on and then you will be taken to a new window. You will be prompted to enter the name of city or feature you desire. Note that the city of feature can be in any part of the world.
You can use any of these three options but note that you cannot use all or any two of them in combination with each other.
There are several types of images provided by Earth Explorer. Among them the data sets for the aerial photography are discussed below.ASAS:
ASAS stands for The Advanced Solid-State Array Spectroradiometer data. This is a collection i.e. data set, collected by the ASAS sensor which was launched by NASA aircraft. The basic use of ASAS is to characterize and distinguish the direction variance in scattered solar energy; scattered by the different surfaces like land, forests, grasslands, snow, etc.
The bidirectional reflectance distribution function of this spectroradiometer determines the variance in reflection from a surface. It determines it as a function of both the view zenith angle as well as solar illumination angle.
This data is available only for the continental United States. However some data is also available for other parts like Canada and Western Africa. This data set is useful for validating forest areas, estimating biophysical parameters which are very useful in estimating forest ecosystem models, obtaining vegetation algorithms, as well as obtaining information on atmospheric properties like pressure, etc.
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Tags: Other Satellite Programs
