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Project

Landsat

Joint NASA–USGS Earth-observation satellite program providing the longest continuous space-based record of land surface conditions since 1972.

Known aliases

  • Landsat 1
  • Landsat program
  • Landsat programme
  • Landsat satellites
  • NASA Landsat
  • NASA-USGS Landsat

Current stories

scienceOne report1 publisher

Landsat images show farmland and aquaculture along Thailand's Bang Pakong River under water

NASA's Landsat images show farmland and aquaculture along Prachin Buri's Bang Pakong River flooded on 2 October 2026, set against the same season in 2025. The pair is strong evidence of how far the water spread that day and weaker evidence of what caused it.

Publishers:nasa.gov

Reality

Evidence65
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap−5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence60
scienceOne report1 publisher

UBC model finds just over half of Kelowna's potential tree shade in a fifth of the city

UBC researchers testing two heat-planning tools in Kelowna found that 20% of the city's analyzed area holds 50.8% of its potential new tree shade. Paired with heat maps sharpened to 10-meter pixels, the rankings reach single blocks, though they rest on surface heat.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
scienceConfirmed3 publishers

Fifty years of satellite data pin 84% of polar ice loss on faster-flowing glaciers

The IMBIE team merged 42 independent satellite surveys from 27 missions to account for 11.3 trillion tonnes of ice lost from Greenland and Antarctica since 1979, and it assigns 84% of that loss to glaciers accelerating into the ocean.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 48%
Operator
Operator 44%
Investor
Investor 8%

Reality

Evidence72
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+6
Incentives30
Confidence72
scienceOne report1 publisher

Forty years of satellite images show shrubs spreading inside northeastern alpine zones

Dartmouth and Appalachian Mountain Club researchers found significant vegetation gains in 69% of alpine zones between the Adirondacks and the Gaspe. The growth runs fastest on wind-sheltered slopes, where ground surveys will have to settle whether rare flowering plants are losing out.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence55
scienceOne report1 publisher

Guano color in 4,000 Landsat frames reconstructs four decades of Adelie penguin diets

Calibrating penguin guano color against guano chemistry gave one team a krill-share model they could run backwards through an archive that starts in the 1980s. It is cheap, it covers a whole continent, and it is correlational about krill, the number everyone wants pinned down.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence38
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+28
Incentives62
Confidence44
scienceOne report1 publisher

Indonesia's peat fires logged a tenth of 2015's emissions in their first month

Peat gives off roughly three times the fine particulate matter of other tropical forest fires, so most of this season's health cost is decided by how much soil is already dry and when the rains return.

Publishers:nasa.gov

Reality

Evidence68
Adoption58
Hype gap+6
Incentives42
Confidence63
scienceOne report1 publisher

Landsat's guano record backdates 18 emperor penguin colonies by 17 years on average

The archive that pushed Smyley Island's founding back to at least 1989 also shows the colony re-forming beside grounded icebergs after a probable total failure in 2022. That re-forming pattern is awkward for projections that hold breeding sites still.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption48
Hype gap+14
Incentives34
Confidence52
scienceOne report1 publisher

Tides vary by nearly a metre inside one bay, and gauge-based flood maps smooth it out

A Landsat-based method estimates tides every 100 metres of Pacific coastline. Inside a single 90 km New Zealand bay it finds gradients that gauge-fed models cannot see.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence44
Adoption12
Hype gap+14
Incentives58
Confidence46