NASA launches powerful Landsat 9 satellite to monitor the earth’s climate changes
NASA launched Landsat 9, to monitor the earth’s surface and to study the climate changes. Landsat 9 was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and it was carried into space aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The satellite was detached from the rocket’s upper stage more than an hour later.
The specialty of the satellite when compared with that of the previous ones is that Landsat 9 can see more color shades with greater depths. This would help scientists to get more details about our ever-changing planet.
Landsat 9 which is also called the earth monitoring satellite is a joint venture of NASA and the US Geological Survey and it was a major milestone in the approximate 50-year joint partnership. From the very first launching of Landsat satellites in 1972, scientists could get an almost clear idea of the earth’s position, geometry, and other matters. It also helped to understand how land usage has changed over the decades.
Landsat 9 along with its previous satellite Landsat 8 would capture the images of Earth’s land and coastal areas. It is being done to find any changes that are taking place in the environment and landscape of the earth. The landscape images capturing include agricultural productivity along with forest cover, health, and water quality, coral reef habitat along with glacier dynamics.
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Landsat 9 is the most technologically advanced satellite of its all other generation. The satellite consists of two instruments, operational Land Imager 2 (OLI-2) and Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS-2) and the instruments will measure different wavelengths of light reflected off the Earth’s surface. Scientists also say that the earth’s climate changes will be monitored with the new satellite frequently. The satellite will rotate around the earth’s orbit
