The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is a satellite-based sensor used for earth and climate measurements. There are two MODIS sensors in

Earth orbit Earth orbits the Sun at an average distance of 149.60 million km (92.96 million mi) in a counterclockwise direction as viewed from above the Northern Hemisphere. One complete orbit takes days (1 sidereal year), during which time Eart ...

: one on board the

Terra Terra may often refer to: * Terra (mythology), primeval Roman goddess * An alternate name for planet Earth, as well as the Latin name for the planet Terra may also refer to: Geography Astronomy * Terra (satellite), a multi-national NASA scienti ...

(

EOS In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Eos (; Ionic and Homeric Greek ''Ēṓs'', Attic ''Héōs'', "dawn", or ; Aeolic ''Aúōs'', Doric ''Āṓs'') is the goddess and personification of the dawn, who rose each morning from her home at ...

AM) satellite, launched by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

in 1999; and one on board the

Aqua Aqua is the Latin word for water. It is used in many words which relate to water, such as aquatic life. In English, it may also refer to: Arts * Aqua (color), a greenish-blue color Business * Aqua (skyscraper), an 82-story residential skysc ...

(EOS PM) satellite, launched in 2002. MODIS has now been replaced by the

VIIRS The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is a sensor designed and manufactured by the Raytheon Company on board the polar-orbiting Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP), NOAA-20, and NOAA-21 weather satellites. VI ...

, which first launched in 2011 aboard the

Suomi NPP The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP), previously known as the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) and NPP-Bridge, is a weather satellite operated by the United States ...

satellite. The MODIS instruments were built by Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. They capture data in 36 spectral bands ranging in wavelength from 0.4 μm to 14.4 μm and at varying spatial resolutions (2 bands at 250 m, 5 bands at 500 m and 29 bands at 1 km). Together the instruments image the entire Earth every 1 to 2 days. They are designed to provide measurements in large-scale global dynamics including changes in Earth's cloud cover, radiation budget and processes occurring in the oceans, on land, and in the lower atmosphere. Support and calibration is provided by the MODIS characterization support team (MCST).

Applications

With its high temporal resolution although low spatial resolution, MODIS data are useful to track changes in the landscape over time. Examples of such applications are the monitoring of vegetation health by means of time-series analyses with vegetation indices, long term land cover changes (e.g. to monitor deforestation rates), global snow cover trends, water inundation from pluvial, riverine, or

sea level rise Globally, sea levels are rising due to human-caused climate change. Between 1901 and 2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by , or 1–2 mm per year on average.IPCC, 2019Summary for Policymakers InIPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cry ...

flooding in coastal areas, change of water levels of major lakes such as the Aral Sea, and the detection and mapping of wildland fires in the United States. The

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency in ...

's Remote Sensing Applications Center analyzes MODIS imagery on a continuous basis to provide information for the management and suppression of wildfires."MODIS Active Fire Mapping Program FAQs."
''United States Forest Service.'' Retrieved: 30 September 2014.

Specifications

Calibration

MODIS utilizes four on-board calibrators in addition to the space view in order to provide in-flight calibration: solar diffuser (SD), solar diffuser stability monitor (SDSM), spectral radiometric calibration assembly (SRCA), and a v-groove

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. MODIS has used the marine optical buoy for vicarious calibration.

MODIS bands

MODIS data

MODIS Level 3 datasets

The following MODIS Level 3 (L3) datasets are available from NASA, as processed by the Collection 5 software.

Availability

Raw MODIS data stream can be received in real-time using a tracking antenna, due to the instrument's direct broadcast capability. Alternatively, the scientific data are made available to the public via several

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sites and

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

archives, such as:
ECHO Reverb
– the next generation metadata and service discovery tool, which has replaced the former Warehouse Inventory and Search Tool (WIST);
LAADS Web
– Level 1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS) web interface;
LANCE-MODIS
– Land Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS * ftp://ladsftp.nascom.nasa.gov/ – LAADS underlying FTP server; * http://e4ftl01.cr.usgs.gov/ – Earth land surface datasets; * ftp://n4ftl01u.ecs.nasa.gov/ – snow and ice datasets. Most of the data are available in the HDF-EOS format — a variant of

Hierarchical Data Format Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) is a set of file formats (HDF4, HDF5) designed to store and organize large amounts of data. Originally developed at the U.S. National Center for Supercomputing Applications, it is supported by The HDF Group, a non-p ...

prescribed for the data derived from

Earth Observing System The Earth Observing System (EOS) is a program of NASA comprising a series of artificial satellite missions and scientific instruments in Earth orbit designed for long-term global observations of the land surface, biosphere, atmosphere, and oceans ...

missions.

References

External links

Official NASA siteMODIS bands and spectral ranges (broken link)MODIS Images of the Day

– Google Gadget referring to MODIS image of the day.
Gallery of Images of Interest
* ttp://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ MODIS Rapid Response system (near real time images)br>NASA OnEarth (Web service for MODIS imagery)Visible Earth: Latest MODIS imagesMODIS Sinusoidal: Projection 6842 – MODIS SinusoidalPython: accessing near real-time MODIS images and fire data from NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites
(

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) {{Authority control Satellite imaging sensors NASA