EROS

Since I can remember I’ve always loved maps. I remember this huge atlas in our house growing up and just loving to flip through it. The fascination continued as I grew older and I loved looking at aerial photos. And one of the books still on my wish list is that big photography book with 365 photos of Earth from above. The coolest thing these days is what we can access online. Google Earth lets us look at any tiny corner of the world in great detail. Everyone is fascinated seeing what that program can do.

Earth Resources Observation Systems is part of the United States Geographical Survey. They are working on some pretty cool science from the middle of a cornfield. Dave has been working there for ten years. So I got a brief tour. I was amazed by the whole place, though it was a lot of information to take in. it would be great to lean more about the technology.

From my understanding they use satellite imagery of Earth mostly for research purposes. A lot of the images are used during disasters such as forest fires and Hurricane Katrina. They are able to produce these amazing images of, I believe, anywhere in the world. They continually retrieve images of Earth as satellites scan from 300 miles away.

One of the neatest aspects was seeing the computer room. One monitor was showed the actual route the satellite was taking around the Earth and exactly where it was at the time. Another monitor displayed the images as they were coming in second by second. At the time I was watching I believe it was retrieving images over Arizona.

Now that’s just a brief run down from me, who knows nothing about it really. I was silent with fascination while there.

I encourage everyone to check out the site: where you can download all sorts of images.