Remote sensing as a research area focuses on the acquisition, processing, and interpretation of information about the Earth or other targets without direct contact, primarily using sensors mounted on satellites, aircraft, drones, or ground-based platforms. It encompasses the study of electromagnetic radiation interactions with atmosphere, land, water, and biosphere, including multispectral, hyperspectral, radar, and LiDAR techniques. Research addresses sensor design, radiometric and geometric calibration, atmospheric correction, image fusion, and advanced retrieval algorithms for biophysical and geophysical variables. Applications span environmental monitoring, land-use and land-cover mapping, climate and cryosphere studies, hazard assessment, and support for geospatial modeling and data assimilation.
The moon is 384,000 kilometers (239,000 miles) away from Earth, but one of the best places to study its surface is much closer to home. Western planetary scientist Catherine Neish and PhD candidate Sashank Vanga traveled ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 23, 2026
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As of July 20, the public can access data from the two powerful radar instruments aboard the NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite. Teams in the United States and India will release files processed from the ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 21, 2026
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Landslides in Alaska. Air quality in Atlanta. Fire clouds out West. From the Arctic fringes to farm country, NASA's newest class of suborbital Earth Venture missions is gearing up to deliver science that will benefit communities ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 21, 2026
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This composite of images taken by NASA's Psyche mission shows the crescent of Mars grow as the spacecraft approached the planet for a gravity assist from May 2 to May 15, 2026.
Planetary Sciences
Jul 19, 2026
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Private companies are reshaping India's space ambitions, building rockets and satellites as the country pushes to capture a bigger share of the global space economy.
Space Exploration
Jul 17, 2026
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A smartwatch can tell us the level of oxygen in our blood, when our sleep is restless or the number of steps we take in a day. Now imagine that kind of tracking ability for plants. By the time farmers see curling leaves or ...
Biotechnology
Jul 9, 2026
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A new scientific review outlines how satellites and other remote sensing technologies are increasingly shaping how biodiversity and ecosystem health can be monitored at scale—offering new opportunities for countries reporting ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 8, 2026
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Hayabusa 2's primary mission is now well in the past. JAXA's asteroid-sampling spacecraft rendezvoused with asteroid Ryugu in June 2018. It studied the asteroid for 1.5 years and gathered a sample that was returned to Earth ...
Space Exploration
Jul 8, 2026
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The moon is not the only natural object traveling through space alongside Earth. Several small asteroids travel around the sun in near lockstep with our planet. And just like Earth, these space rocks also take a year to complete ...
Astronomy
Jul 3, 2026
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When NASA's Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, or CYGNSS, launched into orbit in 2016, none of the University of Michigan Engineering researchers who developed the system expected it to transform earth science. They ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 2, 2026
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