Landsat Looks to the Moon

Landsat Looks to the Moon

[Source NASA / YouTube] Every full moon, Landsat 8 turns its back on Earth. As the satellite’s orbit takes it to the nighttime side of the planet, Landsat 8 pivots to point at the moon. It scans the distant lunar surface multiple times, then flips back around to continue its task of collecting land-cover information of the sunny side of Earth below. These monthly lunar scans are key to ensuring the land-imaging instrument aboard Landsat 8 is detecting light consistently. For a well-known and stable source of light, nothing on our planet beats the moon, which lacks an atmosphere and has an unchanging surface, barring the odd meteorite.

 
This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11606
 
Further Reading:
+ Landsat 8 Images Earth’s Biggest Satellite

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