Glossary

Used to assign a number to a characteristic of an object or event, which can be compared with other objects or events.  

A key instrument aboard NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. MODIS instruments view the entire Earth’s surface every 1-2 days, acquiring data in 36 spectral bands. It plays a vital role in the development of validated, global, interactive Earth system models which aim to accurately predict global change.  

For more information, see NASA: MODIS.  

The MSI is carried on the Sentinel-2 satellites.Light reflected up to the MSI instrument from the Earth and its atmosphere is collected by a three-mirror (M1, M2 and M3) telescope and focused, via a beam-splitter, onto two Focal Plane Assemblies (FPAs): one for the ten VNIR wavelengths and one for the three SWIR wavelengths.

For more information see: European Space Agency missions - Sentinel-2

A line-scanning instrument carried by Landsat satellites that continually scans the Earth in a 185 km swath and collects data over a variety of wavelengths.  

For more information, see Landsat: Multispectral Scanner System.  

The point of the celestial sphere that is vertically downward from the observer and directly opposite the zenith.  

Surface reflectance data that has been corrected to remove the effects of topography and angular variation using bidirectional reflectance modelling. 

A national facility that provides world-class, high-end computing services to Australian researchers, including those working in the data-intensive areas of climate and Earth system science.

For more information, see NCI.

A scientific agency within the US Department of Commerce that focuses on the conditions of the oceans, major waterways and atmosphere.

For more information, see NOAA. 

Time in which reporting on events or recording of events is performed as soon as practicable following an event. 

An open source geospatial data management and analysis software project. It is a global initiative to increase the value and use of satellite data by providing users with access to free and open data management technologies and analysis platforms.

At its core, ODC is a set of Python libraries and a PostgreSQL database that allows you to work with geospatial raster data.  

For more information, see Open Data Cube.