Terrapattern provides an open-ended interface for visual query-by-example. Simply click an interesting spot on Terrapattern’s map, and it will find other locations that look similar. Our tool is ideal for locating specialized ‘nonbuilding structures’ and other forms of soft infrastructure that aren’t usually indicated on maps. It’s an open-source tool for discovering “patterns of interest” in unlabeled satellite imagery—a prototype for exploring the unmapped, and the unmappable.
A NASA-led team of scientists has developed the first-ever method for detecting the presence of different types of underground forest fungi from space, information that may help researchers predict how climate change will alter forest habitats.
via http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-satellite-images-uncover-underground-forest-fungi
The GRACE satellites are a pair of twin observing devices that orbit the Earth 137 miles from one another. The Earth’s gravitational pull on the satellites varies depending upon the mass of what is below them at a particular time — a mountain, an ocean — and so by measuring slight perturbations in the distance between the two satellites, scientists detect these mass changes. But when does the Earth’s mass change in a significant way, one that would suggest an important anomaly? Mostly, this does not happen with the ground, rocks, mountains — at least not on human time scales. But water at the Earth’s surface moves around a great deal — California’s drought has been picked up by GRACE, as has dramatic melting of the glaciers of Alaska.
Geoid 2011 - Potsdam Gravity Potato
In this article, I’ll demonstrate a method for modifying a naval telecommunications dish to track moving targets in the sky, such as those in Low Earth Orbit. My dish happily sits in Tennessee, while I direct it using my laptop or cellphone here in Europe. It can also run unattended, tracking moving targets and looking for downlink channels.
http://travisgoodspeed.blogspot.be/2013/07/hillbilly-tracking-of-low-earth-orbit.html