Leicester’s Space Selfie
- 1st Feb 2017
- Author: Josh Barker
While you were sat at home basking in the festive glow of Boxing Day, scientists at the University of Leicester were working hard testing new software on the Sentinel-2 satellite. The test they decided to carry out was none other than a space selfie!
From more than 780 kilometres away the satellite captured a stunning image of Leicester. The sophisticated cameras aboard Sentinel-2 have a resolution of around 10 metres, meaning that the image picks out many well-known features of Leicester such as Bradgate Park and both the Leicester City and Leicester Tigers stadia.
The Sentinel-2 satellites are designed for Earth observation. They study the Earth and aid with things such as monitoring forests, detecting changes in land coverage, and providing vital and rapid information during natural disasters. The satellites achieve this by collecting data from 13 different types of light, including both visible and infrared light. These separate bands allow the satellite to highlight specific things, such as vegetation or water vapour. This fidelity allows scientists and organisations to get the data they need quickly.
The Sentinel-2 satellite that took this image can take data from the entire globe once every 10 days. There are future plans to launch a second Sentinel-2 satellite to help reduce this time gap between images. Until then scientists combine data from this satellite and others, such as NASA’s Landsat satellites.
The second Sentinel-2 is scheduled to be launched in March 2017. With this satellite in place, the satellites should be able to cover the globe every 5 days providing up to date information for scientists that require it.
As part of this increasing capability, the software used for image analysis on these satellites is regularly updated. This test image was taken as part of a new software deployment.
The software update and test were devised and developed here in Leicester by Dr David Moore and the team that the National Centre for Earth Observation based at the Leicester Institute for Space and Earth Observation.
When asked about the satellites and images he said: “On this image, the football and rugby stadia really stand out alongside the white roofs of industrial areas and greener areas such as Victoria Park and the racecourse. Cropston reservoir and Bradgate Park are visible in the top-left corner, and Croft quarry in the bottom left corner. Leicester airport is on the right-hand side with the triangles of the runway.
“The NCEO is also interested in expanding its work to look at what satellite data can provide in terms of flood mapping (at times a major issue for the UK) and this is something that Sentinel-2 can help with.”
