Landsat 8 Pushes the Earth-Monitoring Envelope

Planet Earth is finally ready for its close-up thanks to the state-of-the-art cameras on board Landsat 8, the newest satellite in a series of Earth-monitoring spacecraft that blasted off Monday with two primary missions: to keep track of Earth's land masses and how they are impacted by man and nature; and to fill in the gaps in scientific knowledge resulting from issues with previous Landsats.

Landsat 8, loaded with several technological advancements for better data-gathering, blasted off Monday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California using an Atlas V rocket. The latest satellite in the 41-year-old Landsat program has enhanced capabilities to record the changes happening on the planet.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with the Landsat Data Continuity Mission spacecraft on board is seen on Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013, at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. (Photo: NASA)

Landsat 8 "very greatly boosts, let alone continues, the single most important record of changes in Earth's ecosystems," Gregory Asner of the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology told TechNewsWorld.

"No other series of satellites or any combination of all other satellites from all countries, including the United States, can match what Landsat has provided humankind -- a record of change at a spatial resolution and temporal frequency that scientists and citizens can understand," Asner continued.