Designed and built in the 1980s and 90s nasa and lockheed martin engineers set out to build a satellite that could take simultaneous measurements of earth s atmosphere land and water.
Terra aqua satellite images.
Aqua latin for water is a nasa earth science satellite mission named for the large amount of information that the mission is collecting about the earth s water cycle including evaporation from the oceans water vapor in the atmosphere clouds precipitation soil moisture sea ice land ice and snow cover on the land and ice.
Both terra and aqua modis instruments view the entire earth s surface every 1 to 2 days acquiring data in 36 spectral bands ranging in wavelengths from 0 4 µm to 14 4 µm.
Daily imagery is provided by services from nasa s gibs part of eosdis.
Historical imagery is sourced from microsoft and esri.
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Select near real time products from the tables below.
Nasa noaa satellite suomi npp and modis aqua and terra provide continuous imagery for am at local 10 30am and pm at local 1 30pm.
The twin modis design was aimed to optimize cloud free imaging while minimizing the optical effects of shadows and glare that occur with morning and afternoon sunlight.
Terra aqua modis modis or moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer is a key instrument aboard the terra eos am and aqua eos pm satellites.
By 2007 the rapid response system was producing data globally and had incorporated data and imagery from the modis instrument on the aqua satellite.
The broadcast is continuous with following exceptions.
Data outages and known issues.
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For 20 years terra the flagship earth observing satellite has chronicled changes on earth.
During the time aqua is dumping its play back data which lasts about 15 minutes once per orbit.
Nasa noaa satellite suomi npp and modis aqua and terra provide continuous imagery for am at local 10 30am and pm at local 1 30pm.
Historical imagery is sourced from microsoft and esri.
Modis or moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer is a key instrument aboard the terra originally known as eos am 1 and aqua originally known as eos pm 1 satellites.
Aqua s sister satellite terra began broadcasting selected portions of modis instrument data on x band on march 17 2000.
Near real time versus standard products.
Terra s orbit around the earth is timed so that it passes from north to south across the equator in the morning while aqua passes south to north over the equator in the afternoon.
Terra s orbit around the earth is timed so that it passes from north to south across the equator in the morning while aqua passes south to north over the equator in the afternoon.
As this rapid response image and information provision capability became more visible news organizations began requesting custom geo referenced images for large newsworthy events.