Until last week, the seasons never changed on satellite image software. But Mapbox's Landsat-Live program shares clear images of the Earth's surface in near-real time.
"Launched Thursday, a landmark project from Mapbox has changed the summertime paradigm for online cartography," reports Laura Bliss. "Landsat-live reveals the planet's surface in real time and in stunning resolution, fed by a constant stream of public-domain imagery from NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite."
Bliss goes on to detail the features of the new addition to the cartography toolbox, including giving credit to the U.S. Geological Survey and Amazon Web Services for making the images free and available to the public.
The result is satellite imagery that is 16 days old at the most, according to Bliss, which enables all kinds of practical applications, such as environmental and agricultural monitoring. The article also includes an embedded version and screengrabs from the Landsat-live app.
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