ESA Observing the Earth

Lake MacKay

Larsen, cracked

Earth from Space

Brazil

Earth from Space

ESA helps faster cleaner shipping

With around 90% of world trade carried by ships, making sure a vessel follows the fastest route has clear economic benefits. By merging measurements from different satellites, ESA is providing key information on ocean currents, which is not only making shipping more efficient but is also helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Sentinel-6 mission

Copernicus Sentinel-6

MetOp's Flying Dutchman

Vojvodina

Earth from Space

Copernicus Masters bigger than ever

This year’s Copernicus Masters competition is now open. With prizes totalling more than €1.5 million, the chance to design and launch a small satellite mission and much more, Europe’s leading competition for the novel use of Earth observation has never been so impressive.

Mocoa on the radar

Call for EarthCARE mission advisory group

With ESA’s EarthCARE Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer satellite now entering its ‘production and qualification’ phase, ESA is calling for a new Mission Advisory Group.

Urban monitoring boosted by new data processor

A new processing tool has been developed to bundle information contained in large amounts of satellite data, paving the way for the wealth of Copernicus Sentinel satellite data to be more easily incorporated into online environment-monitoring services.

Alert, Canada

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Climate at your fingertips

Discover our planet’s changing climate through the eyes of satellites with Climate from Space, a new digital book for iPad and Android tablets featuring interactive maps and video interviews with top scientists.

Sentinel-2B timelapse

CryoSat reveals Antarctica in 3D

Around 250 million measurements taken by ESA’s CryoSat over the last six years have been used to create a unique 3D view of Antarctica, offering a snapshot of the undulating surface of this vast ice sheet.

Improving land cover mapping with Sentinel-2

With the pair of Sentinel-2 satellites now in orbit, users are looking ahead to mapping global land cover at 10 m resolution.

Plasma jets

Rome

Satellites shed new light on earthquakes

Satellite radar scans of last year’s earthquake in New Zealand are changing the way we are thinking about earthquake hazards in regions where our planet’s tectonic plates meet.

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Supersonic plasma jets discovered

Information from ESA’s magnetic field Swarm mission has led to the discovery of supersonic plasma jets high up in our atmosphere that can push temperatures up to almost 10 000°C.

Swarm detects asymmetry

Strong electric currents in the upper atmosphere are known to vary according to the season, but ESA’s Swarm mission has discovered that this seasonal variation is not the same in the north and south polar regions.

Watching water

Measuring magnetism

30 years of deforestation

Unravelling Earth’s magnetic field

ESA’s Swarm satellites are seeing fine details in one of the most difficult layers of Earth’s magnetic field to unpick – as well as our planet’s magnetic history imprinted on Earth’s crust.

To the Arctic for CryoSat and beyond

After the relative quiet of the long dark winter months, the Arctic will be a tad busier over the coming weeks as numerous researchers descend on this harsh, yet fragile environment. Their aim is not to disturb its beauty, but to join forces in an all-out effort to measure ice on land and sea.

Glitter helps to monitor ocean waves

The notion of glitter might appear as somewhat frivolous, but scientists are using Sun glitter in images from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission to map the motion of the sea surface.

Atmospheric pollution

Call for Media

MetOp testing

Replay from Banff

Replay from Banff

Live from Banff

Calgary

Etna erupts

Earth from Space

A toast to Sentinel-2B

A ‘toast’ to Copernicus Sentinel-2B as it delivers its first images

Just over a week after being lofted into orbit, the European Union’s Sentinel-2B satellite delivered its first images of Earth, offering a glimpse of the ‘colour vision’ it will provide for the Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.

Kamchatka

Orbiting in sunshine

Following three days of intensive work, mission control today declared the newly launched Sentinel-2B satellite fit and ready for commissioning.

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Managing a mission

Full launch coverage

Revisit #Sentinel2Go

Second ‘colour vision’ satellite for Copernicus launched

The ESA-developed Sentinel-2B satellite was launched today, doubling the coverage of high-resolution optical imaging in the Sentinel-2 mission for the European Union Copernicus environmental monitoring system.

Second ‘colour vision’ satellite for Copernicus launched

The ESA-developed Sentinel-2B satellite was launched today, doubling the coverage of high-resolution optical imaging in the Sentinel-2 mission for the European Union Copernicus environmental monitoring system.

Liftoff replay

Liftoff replay

Sentinel’s last stop

Follow #Sentinel2Go

Watch Sentinel-2B launch

Botswana

Sentinel-2B poised for liftoff

With liftoff just few days away, the next Sentinel satellite for the Copernicus environmental monitoring programme is positioned in the launch tower at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

Earth from Space

Sentinels for agriculture

SnapPlanet app wins top prize at Space App Camp

Developers of an app that combines the increasing availability of satellite images with social networking took home the top prize at this year’s Space App Camp in Barcelona.

Call for media

Colour vision

Lake Success

Two radar eyes are better than one

A novel airborne experiment over the flat agricultural landscape of the Netherlands recently simulated, for the first time, images that could be taken by radar satellites orbiting in tandem.

Earth from Space

What is Sentinel-2?

MetOp's trial by vacuum

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UNEP outlook

Ötztal Alps

Sentinels warn of dangerous ice crack

Following the appearance of a large crack in the ice shelf close to the Halley VI research station in Antarctica, information from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites helped to decide to close the base temporarily.

Sentinels warn of dangerous ice crack

Following the appearance of a large crack in the ice shelf close to the Halley VI research station in Antarctica, information from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites helped to decide to close the base temporarily.

Earth from Space

Earth from Space

Drought to overflow

Sentinel-2 teams prepare for space

Going to space is never routine, and Sentinel-2 mission controllers are leaving nothing to chance as they prepare for the critical days following next month’s liftoff.

Fuel Sentinel-2B: done

As liftoff day draws closer, the Sentinel-2B ‘to do list’ list is shrinking as tasks are ticked off, including the tricky process of fuelling the satellite. And, even despite having to do a few unexpected jobs, everything is on track for launch.

Fuel Sentinel-2B: done

As liftoff day draws closer, the Sentinel-2B 'to do' list is shrinking as tasks are ticked off, including the tricky process of fuelling the satellite. And, even despite having to do a few unexpected jobs, everything is on track for launch.

Farmers to benefit from ESA–BASF collaboration

With farming an exacting science, ESA and the world’s leading chemical company, BASF, have joined forces to see how data from satellites can best serve the agricultural community.

Sicilian snow

Earth from Space

CryoSat reveals lake outbursts beneath Antarctic ice

A novel way of using ESA’s CryoSat mission has revealed how lakes beneath Thwaites Glacier drained into the Amundsen Sea – potentially the largest such outflow ever reported in this region of West Antarctica.

Satellites monitor landslide in the Alps

Climate change-driven glacial melt is causing landslides in alpine regions. Data from the Sentinel-1 satellite mission are being inserted into a new cloud computing system to monitor such hazards globally.

Musa Bay

Earth from Space

Botswana wetlands

Wind satellite heads for final testing

The road to realising ESA’s Aeolus mission may have been long and bumpy, but developing novel space technology is, by its very nature, challenging. With the satellite now equipped with its revolutionary instrument, the path ahead is much smoother as it heads to France to begin the last round of tests before being shipped to the launch site at the end of the year.

Larsen crack

Western Texas

Earth from Space

Big Island

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#Sentinel2Go launch

Colour vision

Saint Petersburg

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Sentinel-2B launch preparations off to a flying start

Some of us may be easing ourselves gently into the New Year, but for the team readying Sentinel-2B for liftoff on 7 March it’s full steam ahead.

Weather watchtower

Weather watchtower

Earth from Space

Earth from Space

Tian Shan

Earth from Space

Changing landscape

There’s a jet stream in our core

We would normally associate jet streams with the weather but, thanks to ESA’s magnetic field mission, scientists have discovered a jet stream deep below Earth’s surface – and it’s speeding up.

Satellite cousins have ice covered

Although not designed to deliver information on ice, ESA’s Earth Explorer SMOS satellite can detect thin sea-ice. Since its cousin, CryoSat, is better at measuring thicker ice scientists have found a way of using these missions together to yield an even clearer picture of the changing Arctic.

Seville

Earth from Space

Siles subsides

Reissued: call for Earth Explorer 9 proposals

Scientists involved in Earth observation have another opportunity to submit a proposal for ESA’s next Earth Explorer satellite mission.

Now available

Satellites track variations in Antarctica’s glacial retreat

Five satellites spanning two decades have revealed variations in the timing and pace of glacial retreat in West Antarctica. Some glaciers’ thinning spreads up to three times faster than on neighbouring tributaries, and was offset by decades.

Wolfe Creek

Earth from Space

Nordic entrepreneurial spirit boosted by space

More than 17 000 people converged on Helsinki in Finland this week to create businesses – and ESA was there to add its space expertise.   

Nordic entrepreneurial spirit boosted by space

More than 17 000 people converged on Helsinki in Finland this week to create businesses – and ESA was there to add its space expertise.   

Switzerland

Sharing Earth observation satellite data to help understand our planet

Since the launch of the first Earth-observing satellites in the 1970s, numerous missions from international space organisations have taken to the sky. Today, decades of data are helping scientists to build a better picture of changes to our planet.

Earth from Space