During nearly a year of flight testing on the space station, a new thermal infrared camera collected more than 15 million images.
When remote sensing scientists observe Earth, they often look for heat signatures. Fires, volcanoes, ice, water, and even sunlit or shaded landscapes emit and reflect heat and light—energy—in ways that make them stand out from their surroundings. NASA scientists recently used a new sensor to read some of those signatures more clearly.
Through nearly a year of testing on the International Space Station (ISS), the experimental Compact Thermal Imager (CTI) collected more than 15 million images of Earth, and the results were compelling. Researchers were impressed by the breadth and quality of the imagery CTI collected in 10 months on the ISS, particularly of fires.
For instance, CTI captured several images of the unusually severe fires in Australia that burned for four months in 2019-20. With its 80-meter (260 foot) per pixel resolution, CTI was able to detect the shape and location of fire fronts and how far they were from settled areas—information that is critically important to first responders.
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Image via NASA Earth Observatory
