Wednesday, August 24, 2011

ESA ERS-2: Collision Avoidance manouvre

This multi-colour ERS-2 image shows the Strait of Messina, the narrow section of water separating the Italian Peninsula (seen on the right) from Sicily. 

It is a composite of three ERS-2 radar images acquired on different dates with different colours assigned to each date: red for 13 February 2002; green for 11 August 2004; blue for 5 May 1999.

Credits: ESA

ERS-2 was launched in 1995, four years after ERS-1, the first European Remote Sensing satellite.

With 20 years of continuous measurements, the two missions paved the way for the development of many new Earth observation techniques in the areas of atmosphere, land, ocean and ice monitoring.

ERS-2 also carried the first European high-precision instrument to measure stratospheric ozone concentrations. It was crucial for observing the evolution of annual ozone depletion over Antarctica.

ERS-2 travelled 3.8 billion km during its lifetime, providing data for thousands of scientists and projects.

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