Glossary

The angle of the satellite’s position from true north; i.e. the angle between true north and a vertical circle passing through the satellite and the point being imaged on Earth. 

The angle between the zenith and the satellite.

The intensity of a colour. A highly saturated colour is vivid and brilliant. To dull a colour and decrease its saturation, add small amounts of its complement, making it closer to grey.

Each Landsat image collected is a scene. Each Landsat scene is 115x106 miles long. The globe is divided into 57,784 scenes, and each Landsat scene has about 3 billion bytes of data. 

The Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) is a dual-view scanning temperature radiometer, which flies in low Earth orbit (800 - 830 km altitude). The principal objective of SLSTR products is to provide global and regional Sea and Land Surface Temperature (SST, LST) to a very high level of accuracy (better than 0.3 K for SST) for both climatological and meteorological applications.

For more information see: Sentinel-3 SLSTR Overview

A satellite fleet, or constellation, which is part of the Copernicus Programme. 

Sentinel consists of the following satellites: Sentinel 1, Sentinel 2, Sentinel 3, Sentinel 4, Sentinel 5, Sentinel 5P and Sentinel 6. 

Each satellite has a different purpose or capability, and together, they address six thematic areas: land, marine, atmosphere, climate change, emergency management and security. 

For more information, see Copernicus: Discover our satellites, Glossary: Copernicus Programme.

The angle of the sun’s position from true north; i.e. the angle between true north and a vertical circle passing through the sun and the point being imaged on Earth. 

The solar irradiance is the output of light energy from the entire disk of the Sun, measured at the Earth.

The angle between the zenith and the centre of the sun’s disc.

The angle between the local zenith (i.e. directly above the point on the ground) and the line of sight from that point to the sun