The Earth "remembers" each of our names

From the perspective of the universe, the earth remembers the name of each of us Wen Xin, He Shenglong, Bai Zichi

Recently, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has innovatively launched an online interactive website and its featured tools based on the rich earth resource library accumulated by the "Landsat Project". This tool is not only completely free, but also very interesting: users only need to simply enter their own names, and the system can automatically generate a series of images, which cleverly combine each letter of the user's name. After completing the creation, users can choose to download these personalized pictures, which are very suitable for self-appreciation or sharing with friends. However, before introducing how to obtain these free resources and the reasons behind them, let us first unveil the mystery of the "Landsat Project" and understand the resources and strength behind it.
1. What is the Landsat Project?

The Landsat Program is a series of Earth observation satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The Landsat satellite system under the program, as the only medium-scale global surface repeated observation platform in the United States, can not only capture natural surface changes, but also record the transformation of the surface by human activities.
On July 23, 1972, in close cooperation with NASA, the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS-1) was successfully launched and subsequently named Landsat 1. Since then, multiple Landsat satellites have been launched, making great contributions to the collection of Earth remote sensing data. Currently, the satellites still in orbit include Landsat 8 and Landsat 9. In addition, NASA and USGS are actively planning subsequent space land imaging missions, among which Landsat Next, the successor to Landsat 9, has attracted much attention.
With their excellent ground resolution and comprehensive spectral bands, the Landsat series of satellites can efficiently track land use and accurately record surface changes caused by various natural and human factors such as climate change, urbanization, drought disasters, wildfires, biomass changes (such as carbon assessment), etc.
Since its launch in 1972, the Landsat series of satellites have been observing the Earth for more than 50 years, collecting a large number of breathtaking images and precious data. These data provide indispensable information and trend analysis for the study of land changes, which are not available in any other way. As the world's longest-running medium-resolution space land remote sensing satellite system, Landsat not only carries the heavy responsibility of scientific research, but is also widely used in commercial activities, education and various social activities, providing valuable satellite data support for users around the world.

2. Current status of Landsat satellites in orbit
On September 27, 2021, the Landsat 9 satellite was successfully launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, forming a dual-satellite collaborative observation situation with the Landsat 8 satellite already in orbit. This combination shortens the data collection revisit cycle from every 16 days to once every 8 days, maintaining the same high efficiency as the previous combination of Landsat 8 and Landsat 7. This improvement continues to highlight the key role that the Landsat project plays in monitoring, understanding and managing land resources that are vital to human survival.
Compared with previous Landsat satellites, Landsat 9 has achieved significant improvements in imaging capabilities. Whether in terms of measurement accuracy or geometric range, Landsat 9 has demonstrated better performance than previous generations of satellites. As a result, it can add about 1,400 scenes of valuable data to the Landsat global land archive every day, further enriching our Earth observation resources.

3. Future Prospects of the Landsat Program An innovative Landsat mission, Landsat Next, is expected to be launched in late 2030 to early 2031, marking a huge leap in measurement capabilities and bringing higher temporal, spatial and spectral resolution. The mission is designed to meet the needs of global land observation users, support evolving and emerging application areas, while ensuring the continuity of land observation data and the data quality of the longest space record of the Earth's land surface.

The Landsat Next satellite observation system consists of a constellation of three satellites, which will be launched into space through a three-satellite rocket and deployed at an orbital altitude of 653 kilometers, 120 degrees apart from each other. This constellation system will provide a revisit rate of every 6 days, which is a significant performance improvement over the 16-day revisit cycle of Landsat 8 or Landsat 9, thereby enhancing the monitoring and management capabilities of dynamic and changing landscapes.
In addition, the spatial resolution of the Landsat Next satellite observation system has also been greatly improved. The spatial resolution of all payloads carried by each satellite is better than that of previous Landsat satellite missions, and can detect smaller features and more accurately depict the details of the land surface, surface waters and coastlines. Pixel resolution ranges from 10 meters to 60 meters. At the same time, Landsat Next has also expanded its spectrum capacity and introduced 10 new spectrum bands to support emerging applications such as sensing, such as monitoring algal blooms, ice sheets, and estimating surface emissivity.
The Landsat Next satellite will continue the Landsat program's decades-long tradition of recording spatial multispectral image data, which comprehensively covers and repeatedly observes the Earth's land surface from a global perspective, at a scale sufficient to detect, distinguish, characterize and monitor changes caused by natural and human activities over time. Specific tasks include using phenological characteristics to classify vegetation and model crop development, health and yield, detecting periodic disturbances caused by harvesting and occasional insect and disease factors, assessing near-continuous water use and evapotranspiration, providing early warnings of fires and harmful algal blooms, monitoring public health during heatwave seasons, and tracking the dynamic changes of snow and ice on land and ocean.

4. How to create your own name using images of the Earth taken by the Landsat satellite To spell out your own name using satellite images, you need to follow these steps:
(1) First, you need to visit the following website:
https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/apps/YourNameInLandsat-main/index.html
After entering the webpage, you will see an interface as shown in Figure 1. This interface is the starting point for creating a personalized name image.

Figure 1 Human-computer interaction interface (2) In the interface dialog box shown in Figure 2, please enter your name. For example, after entering your name, click the button on the right side of the dialog box, and you will see the interface shown in Figure 2 showing your name image (please note that if you are not satisfied with the generated image, you can click the button repeatedly until you get a satisfactory result).

Figure 2 Landsat will create a series of images that include one depicting each letter of your name.

2) How do you know where on Earth the image depicting your own name comes from?
Click each image with the mouse, and the latitude, longitude and geographic location of the image will be given below the dialog box. Now, click the first image with the mouse to obtain the geographic location information: "w": 67°02'10.9 N 40°20'19.3 E Ponoy River, Russia, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Click on the first image describing the letter "W" to get the geographic location information
3) How to share Click the button to download the share image, and then you can share it.

Figure 4 The downloaded pictures can be given to yourself or shared.