NASA Spacecraft Gets a Birdseye View of Canary Islands Wildfire
Firefighters continue to battle a forest fire on La Gomera in Spain's Canary Islands, which forced the evacuation of 5,000 people. The fire has consumed about 2,000 acres of woodland in the Garajonay nature reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft acquired this image on Aug. 17, 2012, of the northern part of the island. Healthy vegetation is red, burned areas are gray and dark gray. The main town of San Sebastian can be seen on the eastern shore of the island. The image covers an area of 14 by 11 miles (23 by 18 kilometers) and is located near 28.1 degrees north latitude, 17.2 degrees west longitude.
With its 14 spectral bands from the visible to the thermal infrared wavelength region and its high spatial resolution of 15 to 90 meters (about 50 to 300 feet), ASTER images Earth to map and monitor the changing surface of our planet. ASTER is one of five Earth-observing instruments launched Dec. 18, 1999, on Terra. The instrument was built by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. A joint U.S./Japan science team is responsible for validation and calibration of the instrument and data products.
The broad spectral coverage and high spectral resolution of ASTER provides scientists in numerous disciplines with critical information for surface mapping and monitoring of dynamic conditions and temporal change. Example applications are: monitoring glacial advances and retreats; monitoring potentially active volcanoes; identifying crop stress; determining cloud morphology and physical properties; wetlands evaluation; thermal pollution monitoring; coral reef degradation; surface temperature mapping of soils and geology; and measuring surface heat balance.
The U.S. science team is located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The Terra mission is part of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C.
More information about ASTER is available at http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/.