Advertisement

nature-iconNaturenature-iconplanet earth
clock-iconPUBLISHED

Spell Your Name With USGS And NASA's Glorious Satellite Imagery

With over 50 years' worth of images to choose from, it is no surprise how amazing these really are.

Eleanor Higgs headshot

Eleanor Higgs

Eleanor Higgs headshot

Eleanor Higgs

Digital Content Creator

Eleanor is a content creator and social media assistant with an undergraduate degree in zoology and a master’s degree in wildlife documentary production.

Digital Content Creator

EditedbyLaura Simmons
Laura Simmons headshot

Laura Simmons

Editor and Staff Writer

Laura is an editor and staff writer at IFLScience. She obtained her Master's in Experimental Neuroscience from Imperial College London.

share63Shares
The letters for IFLScience spelt out in brightly colored satelittle images of lakes and rivers.

You've seen ours, now show us yours! 

Image credit: Ross Walter, Allison Nussbaum, and Ginger Butcher from the Landsat Communications & Public Engagement Team

Here at IFLScience we enjoy a little interactive internet quiz or poll just as much as the next person, from finding out if we see the same color blue as each other to testing the Earworm Eraser after one too many TikToks. Now, the Landsat series of satellites is getting in on the action with an online interactive that lets you spell your name in features of Earth’s surface.

Advertisement

Made using images from the NASA Earth Observatory, NASA Worldview, United States Geological Survey (USGS) EarthExplorer, and European Space Agency Sentinel Hub, users can find topological features to spell out the letters of their name or any word they choose. Since the land on Earth covers around 150 million square kilometers (58 million square miles) there’s a lot of scope to choose from. 

The Landsat Program began on July 23, 1972 to help document changes to Earth’s surface from things like commercial development, as well as climate change and natural disasters. It is the “world’s longest continuously acquired collection of space-based moderate-resolution land remote sensing data,” explains the USGS. 

The project is a joint operation between the USGS and NASA with many iterations of satellites contributing to the data pool. Its main objective is to collect many images of the same places, allowing the changes over time in certain areas to be monitored. 

“If you really want a long history of understanding any process on Earth, Landsat is where you should go,” said Tasso Azevedo of the MapBiomas Initiative.

Landsat 9 was launched in September 2021 and continues to contribute to more than 50 years of Landsat satellite data, including on pressing issues like sea ice decline and glacier retreats. 

Advertisement

The IFLScience name features an “i” from Etosha National Park, Namibia, a “c” from Black Rock Desert in Nevada, and an “e” from the firn-filled fjords of Tibet.

So go on, see what features spell your name here


ARTICLE POSTED IN

nature-iconNaturenature-iconplanet earth
  • tag
  • nasa,

  • earth,

  • satellites,

  • USGS,

  • planet earth,

  • satellite imagery,

  • landsat

FOLLOW ONNEWSGoogele News