Welcome to the final week of ‘Earth Observation from Space’. This week’s format will be quite different to previous weeks. We start with three videos which provide an overview of emerging trends and technology and the new applications they have opened up through the increasing amount of freely available data. This is followed by the final test of the course. And in the final section we have provided three practical video guides for those who want to gain a more in-depth insight into accessing and working with EO data-sets. There are no other quizzes this week but we hope these practical guides will act as a useful process to work on instead.

This video provides a look at how a new breed of lower cost satellite constellations and optical instruments, and innovative new software tools, are creating new ways to monitor the environment, respond to disasters and humanitarian crises, and provide citizens with more direct ways of observing changes on their planet.

Smaller cameras and memory chips have made it easier to take more and better quality images of Earth from space. This has increased interest in developing imaging from space in recent years, particularly with the emergence of cubesat and nanosat technologies. Companies such as Planet Labs and Skybox (which was acquired by Google) are creating new outlets for optical Earth observation.

Featured Experts:

• Professor Martin Wooster

• Dr Mathias Disney

• Aurelie Shapiro

• Barbara Horvatic

Don’t forget you can download the video, transcript and take any quizzes available with the links on the right.