Landsat View: Santiago, Chile

Santiago, Chile, ranks among the world's fastest growing cities. Chile is South America's fifth largest economy with strong export and tourism markets. More than a third of Chile's population lives in Santiago as of 2009. Taken on January 9, 1985, and January 30, 2010, this pair of images from the Landsat 5 satellite illustrates the city's steady growth. The images were made with infrared and visible light (Landsat bands 4, 3, and 2) so that plant-covered land is red. Bare or sparsely vegetated land is tan, and the city is dark silver. In the fifteen years that elapsed between 1985 and 2010, the city expanded away from the Andes Mountains along spoke-like lines, which are major roads.

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NASA and the U.S. Department of the Interior through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) jointly manage Landsat, and the USGS preserves a 40-year archive of Landsat images that is freely available over the Internet. The next Landsat satellite, now known as the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) and later to be called Landsat 8, is scheduled for launch in 2013.

In honor of Landsat’s 40th anniversary in July 2012, the USGS released the LandsatLook viewer – a quick, simple way to go forward and backward in time, pulling images of anywhere in the world out of the Landsat archive.

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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.

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