ESA Observing the Earth

Romania to shed new light on the atmosphere

Romania is leading the way in an ambitious project to build an instrument to detect and monitor tiny particles suspended in the air. The new ‘lidar’– the first of its kind in Europe – is set to contribute to ESA’s satellites that focus on the atmosphere.

Kalma

Earth from Space

Dragon receives high award in China

Following a decade of cooperation, China has honoured ESA’s Yves-Louis Desnos with the People’s Republic of China Friendship Award – the country’s highest honour for foreign experts who have contributed to China’s economic and social progress.

My Planet from Space

The fragility and beauty of our planet came into focus yesterday with a special viewing of satellite images at Rome’s Palazzo delle Esposizioni. The event was attended by the heads of ESA, NASA, Italy’s space agency and representatives from the Italian Presidency of the Council of the EU.

My Planet from Space

First Copernicus satellite now operational

With the commissioning of Sentinel-1A completed and the satellite’s transfer to the team in charge of its exploitation, its data are available as of today to all users.

This marks the beginning of the satellite’s operational life, delivering radar coverage for an array of applications in the areas of oceans, ice, changing land and emergency response.

Athabasca oil sands

CryoSat unveils secrets of the deep

ESA’s ice mission has been used to create a new gravity map, exposing thousands of previously unchartered ‘seamounts’, ridges and deep ocean structures. This vivid new picture of the least-explored part of the ocean offers fresh clues about how continents form and breakup.

Earth from Space

Earth from Space

Earth’s portrait

Earth from Space

New toolboxes make using Sentinel data easy

The Sentinel satellites are built primarily to deliver information for environmental services through Europe’s Copernicus programme, but they will also be used to advance our scientific understanding of Earth. Paving the way for easy scientific exploitation, ESA has released three new open source scientific software toolboxes.

Good and bad news for our atmosphere

Data from ESA’s veteran Envisat satellite show ups and downs in the concentrations of the air pollutant nitrogen dioxide and the climate-relevant greenhouse gas carbon dioxide across the globe.

GOCE reveals gravity dip from ice loss

Although not designed to map changes in Earth’s gravity over time, ESA’s extraordinary satellite has shown that the ice lost from West Antarctica over the last few years has left its signature.

Athens on the radar

Earth from Space

Helsinki

Earth from Space

ESA trains tomorrow’s Earth observation scientists

World-renowned remote sensing experts gathered in Valencia, Spain, last week to train the next generation of Earth observation scientists in the exploitation of satellite data for land applications.

My Planet from Space

My Planet from Space

Paving the way for carbon mission

Scientists met in California this summer to test new methods for measuring greenhouse gases. This joint effort helps to show how ESA’s CarbonSat candidate satellite mission could identify sources of carbon dioxide and methane and how they disperse in the atmosphere.

Bringing Earth observation to the everyday user

Using satellites for improving the exploitation of water resources is just one of the innovative ideas developed over the week-long 'camp' dedicated to creating mobile apps drawing on Earth observation data. 

Lake Gairdner

Remote learning