<div>The A1 poster incorporates 4 images of Australia taken from space by Earth observing satellites. The accompanying text briefly introduces sensors and the bands within the electromagnetic spectrum. The images include examples of both true and false colour and the diverse range of applications of satellite images such as tracking visible changes to the Earth’s surface like crop growth, bushfires, coastal changes and floods. Scientists, land and emergency managers use satellite images to analyse vegetation, surface water or human activities as well as evaluate natural&nbsp;hazards.</div>

Legacy product - no abstract available

The satellite images below show the dramatic effect on the land of recent heavy rain, causing floodwaters to inundate south-west Queensland. This area is known as the Channel Country and has an extensive braided river system which includes the Georgina River, the Diamantina River and Cooper Creek. Excess water from this area generally feeds into the Lake Eyre system which is a vast drainage basin in Australia's arid interior. Flooding of the magnitude visible on the satellite images can cause Lake Eyre to fill up - something which occurs very rarely.

The Landsat series of satellites commenced acquiring remotely sensed data with the launch of Landsat 1 in 1972. The Landsat satellites travel at an altitude of 705 kilometres and provide coverage of the entire globe every 16 days. Landsat 5, launched in 1984, carries the Thematic Mapper (TM) sensor in addition to the Multispectral Scanner (MSS). The Thematic Mapper is a higher resolution sensor. It provides imagery in seven spectral bands (called Bands 1-7), covering the visible and near, middle and thermal infrared parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. TM has a 30-metre pixel resolution for all bands except Band 6 which has a 120-metre resolution. Its ground swath is 185 kilometres. A full scene is 185 kilometres by 172 kilometres. The archive of ACRES products includes TM data from September 1987 to December 1999 and July 2003 onwards.

The RADARSAT satellite was developed by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and was launched on 4 November 1995. It has a C-band, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensor on board. The SAR is an active microwave sensor capable of imaging earth resource targets regardless of time of day, cloud, haze or smoke cover of an area. The instrument is classified "active" as it emits the energy necessary to image the earth's surface. In contrast, "passive" or "optical" sensors rely on the sun's reflected energy to image the earth. This sensor can operate in a variety of imaging modes to suit a range of applications. Depending on the beam mode, the SAR ground swath widith varies between 50 and 500 kilometres, and the pixel resolution varies between 10 and 100 metres. The sensor has HH polarisation. ACRES Radarsat archive consists of extensive coverage from August 1997 to late 1999. ACRES currently do not have an agreement with RSI but can acquire data if downlink is granted by RSI.

The Landsat series of satellites commenced acquiring remotely sensed data with the launch of Landsat 1 in 1972. Landsat satellites travel at an altitude of 705 kilometres and provide coverage of the entire globe every 16 days. Landsat 7, launched on 15 April 1999, carries the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+). As the name suggests, the ETM+ sensor is similar to the TM sensor but has some added features. It provides imagery in the same seven spectral bands as the TM sensor with 30 metre resolution, but has an added panchromatic band with 15 metre pixel resolution. ETM+ also has an enhanced thermal band with a 60 metre resolution. Its ground swath is 185 kilometres. A full scene is approximately 184 kilometres by 172 kilometres. The archive of ACRES products includes ETM+ data from 6 July 1999 onwards.

Two ERS satellites have been developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). ERS-1 was launched on 17 July 1991 and ERS-2 on 20 April 1995. Both ERS satellites travel at an altitude of 785 kilometres and provide coverage of the entire globe every 35 days. The C-band, Synthetic Appeture Radar (SAR) sensor has been the primary Earth-observing instrument. The SAR is an active microwave sensor capable of imaging earth resource targets regardless of time of day, cloud, haze or smoke cover of an area. The instrument is classified "active" as it emits the energy necessary to image the earth's surface. In contrast, "passive" or "optical" sensors rely on the sun's reflected energy to image the earth. The SAR ground swath is 102.5 kilometres wide, with a nominal 30 metre pixel resolution. The sensor has VV polarisation. ACRES ERS-1 archive includes data acquired from September 1991 to March 2000, while ACRES ERS-2 acquisitions started in November 1995 and continues to present.

Soil mapping at the local- (paddock), to continental-scale, may be improved through remote hyperspectral imaging of surface mineralogy. This opportunity is demonstrated for the semiarid Tick Hill test site (20 km2) near Mount Isa in western Queensland, which is part of a larger Queensland government initiative involving the public delivery of 25,000 km2 of processed airborne hyperspectral mineral maps at 4.5 m pixel resolution to the mineral exploration industry. Some of the "soil" mineral maps for the Tick Hill area include the abundances and/or physicochemistries (chemical composition and crystal disorder) of dioctahedral clays (kaolin, illite-muscovite and Al smectite, both montmorillonite and beidellite), ferric/ferrous minerals (hematite/goethite, Fe2+-bearing silicates/carbonates) and hydrated silica (opal) as well as "soil" water (bound and unbound) and green and dry (cellulose/lignin) vegetation. Validation of these hyperspectral mineral products is based on field sampling and laboratory analyses (spectral reflectance, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope and electron backscatter). The mineral maps show more detailed information regards the surface composition compared with the published soil and geology (1:100,000 scale) maps and airborne radiometric imagery (collected at 200 m line spacing). This mineral information can be used to improve the published mapping but also has the potential to provide quantitative information suitable for soil modeling/monitoring.

The processing, interpretation and mapping of slicks offshore of the South West Margins using ten ERS satellite radar scenes and four Radarsat scenes has been completed successfully. All slick interpretations have been attributed with a hydrocarbon likelihood Level ranging from Level 2 to Level 4 with Level 2 being the most likely. Given the absence of actual field data, no Level 1 slicks have been mapped (see Glossary of Slick and Other Interpretations, p3 below). For all the fourteen scenes interpreted and mapped, there is only one Level 2 slick. This significant slick is located on the western edge of scene ERS 2 WO 01907-01 Orbit 5883. No locations have been provided of the sources of mapped slicks. Although an approximate point source would normally be provided for Level 2 slicks, the only Level 2 slick mapped (as above) is not complete as it is on the edge of the image (and presumably would continue on to an adjacent image acquired at the same time if it were available) and given the depth to sea floor of between 2,500m to 3,000m, it is not possible to provide a point source. Likewise, while an approximate point source would normally be provided for Level 3 slicks, given the depth to sea floor in the locations of the two Level 3 slicks mapped (same scene as for the Level 2 slick) of between 2,500m to 5,500m, it is not possible to provide a point sources. As per normal, Level 4 slicks are not provided with a source point. Many of the Level 4 slicks are located along the coastline in or near to the surf break zone (some possibly adjacent to rocky outcrops) and as such are regarded as false slicks as they most likely relate to differences in sea surface conditions and not to the formation of hydrocarbons.

Geoscience Australia's entry to the ASC2014 SPECTRUM science-art exhibition Title: Seeing Water Through Time Author: Norman Mueller Type: Science Communication image Description: The WOfS, Water Observations from Space, image is a colour-scale of how many times water was detected from the Landsat 5 and 7 satellites over central Australia from 1998 to 2012. The colours range from very low number of times (red) to very high number of times (blue), using a standard rainbow colour scheme (red-orange-yellow-green-blue). This means that red areas are hardly ever wet while blue areas are more permanent water features like lakes. The area covered includes Lake Eyre (at left) Cooper Creek (right of centre) to the Paroo River (bottom right).