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most people think of nasa as looking up

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from earth in the heavens or going out

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from earth to explore space

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and so we thought why don't we turn that

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metaphor around and call it an earth

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observatory and give people a

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space-based perspective for looking back

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i remember the day that we first

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published nasa's earth observatory

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website it was april 29 1999 almost

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exactly 10 years ago

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and it was just a thrill there was a

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feeling of euphoria

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we looked at what nasa had on the web

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and as far as earth science was

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concerned you know what type of earth

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imagery and information and it was all

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very technical

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so we wanted to

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provide a

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a more easily accessible

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and sort of a prettier approach to

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before we launched terra which at the

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time was called eos am1 a brilliant

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scientist by the name of dr joram

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kaufman

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approached me and

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ex and offered the idea that most people

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don't know about this mission a lot of

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the idea for the earth observatory was

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sort of playing off of a metaphor that

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yorum would often use he would speak of

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the earth as if it were a middle-aged

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person

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a patient that was just starting to show

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signs of physical health problems

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and now for the first time

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with the imminent launch of terra we

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were going to have a diagnostic device

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he would often say we're going to give

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the planet a checkup

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we started thinking in terms of what if

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there could be a place online

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where we could do some sort of a near

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real-time readout from the satellites

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that gave vital sign indicators of the

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health of the planet

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i study climate and i'm also very

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interested in extreme events things like

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tornadoes hurricanes floods

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snowfalls in some area either warm

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temperatures or very cold temperatures

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and the great thing about the earth

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observatory is i can go there and i can

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see recent satellite data of those

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specific events or episodes so it

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provides immediate data of areas of

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interest to me and to a wide range of

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other people

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i went home on friday afternoon and

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there was really not a lot going on

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there was this little tropical storm

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kind of going out around florida and not

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much really exciting going on

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and

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over the weekend i got a phone call from

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a member of my family saying did you

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hear about that hurricane

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and i thought oh dear i'm missing

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something so i went and logged into the

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modus rapid response system which

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provides a lot of the satellite imagery

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to the earth observatory and there's

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this giant

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giant hurricane aimed dead center for

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new orleans

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so we stayed and worked very hard to get

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all the flood imagery out at the end of

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the week

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i got an email from somebody at noaa and

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they were trying to assess the impact of

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the flooding and he said he'd been in

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new orleans all week and he had not been

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able to get a good map or a good

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overview of the situation and he was

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delighted to come home and log on to the

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earth observatory and he saw the thing

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that he had been looking for all week

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the overall view of what the impact of

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the hurricane had been on louisiana

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many people are using content from the

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site and don't even know it it's begun

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to sort of intertwine

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with the with the overall backdrop

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of communications about the earth of

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iconic imagery and representations of

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the earth the absolute best moment was

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when i bought my iphone

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and i turned it on and one of my

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pictures is on the loading screen

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which was pretty cool

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i think the images are very powerful

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because they make people think about the

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earth in a different way

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i'm on the faculty of the oceanography

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department at the naval academy i teach

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a course in waves and tides and another

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one in remote satellite remote sensing i

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use image of the day all the time i have

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students start off a class discussing an

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image of the day discussing what

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satellite sensor produced the image

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whether it was active or passive and

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what we're learning about the earth or

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ocean or atmosphere from that image

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it's easier to visualize the very

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complex components of the earth system

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if you have these

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real data from satellites that depict

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how our oceans work how our atmosphere

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works how the land works and seeing them

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all come together i think makes these

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very difficult to visualize concepts

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i get to see the whole earth every day

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and how many people can say that it's

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it's a lot of fun and i really hope that

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people see what we do and

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it connects to them and that they

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they get some joy out of it

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nasa

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has played

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just an amazingly important role

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in shaping our nations and the world's

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identity of itself we are a nation of

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explorers we are a nation who

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fundamentally believes that the future

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should be better than it is today and

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that science and technology will play a

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role in that

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i hope the one thing people learn from

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the earth observatory is that

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our earth is a very beautiful and unique

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planet