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Protecting the Environment

Our peculiar planet

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Concept of the SMART-1 spacecraft in lunar orbit

The busy land

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Deforestation areas appear in light-coloured linear features of relatively high temperatures, in this thermal image from ERS-2 (Credit: ERS-2/ATSR, Leicester University)

Water and ice

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Surface winds around Antarctica (strongest in yellow-tinted areas) as seen by the radar scatterometer on ERS-1.

Ozone holes

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Low levels of stratospheric ozone (blue) observed by ERS-2 over Europe in November 1999. Photo: GOME/ERS-2 and KNMI

The stormy Sun

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A solar eruption seen by the SOHO spacecraft on 24 July 1999. Credit: SOHO/EIT

Climate change

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Cloud climatology as compiled from 11 years of data from weather satellites, including Meteosat (ISCCP/NASA).

Credits: ISCCP/NASA

Natural disasters

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The light blue areas in this chart show farmland under water, identified by comparing ERS/SAR images before and during the severe floods in Bangladesh in 1998.

Cosmic impacts

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Comparative sizes of asteroids. If an asteroid hit the Earth, life near the impact would be instantly wiped out by the effects of high temperatures and pressures. Injection of huge masses of dust (and gases) into the atmosphere would effectively block out sunlight for long periods of time to the point that most life could not be sustained. Photo: Observatoire de Paris

Last update: 24 October 2006