ICESat First Light Release: A Global Perspective

  • Released Thursday, May 15, 2003
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Criss-crossing the world below at nearly 17,000 miles per hour, ICESat is measuring the Earth from space with unprecedented accuracy. ICESat measures the Earth by shining pulses of green and infrared light from one of its three onboard lasers. Although the major goal of ICESat's mission is to observe ice near the poles, the satellite takes measurements continuously around the entire globe, providing valuable information about our planet's clouds, oceans, mountains, forests, and fields.

Slate image from video tape reads, 'ICESat First Light: A Global Perspective.'

Slate image from video tape reads, 'ICESat First Light: A Global Perspective.'



Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Scientific Visualization Studio
The Blue Marble Next Generation data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC) and NASA's Earth Observatory.

Release date

This page was originally published on Thursday, May 15, 2003.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:57 PM EDT.


Missions

This page is related to the following missions:

Datasets used

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