Time, Inc., together with Google, the U.S. Geological Survey, and Carnegie Mellon University’s Create Lab, have set up a website featuring timelapse animations depicting changes in Earth’s surface from 1984 to 2012. The animations are based on images collected as part of the Landsat program, conducted jointly by the USGS and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administation since 1972, in which satellites take images of the Earth’s surface. The Timelapse project’s website houses 25 planetary images, one for each year. Landsat images “contain many layers of data collected at different points along the visible and invisible light spectra,” USGS spokesperson Jon Campbell told TechNewsWorld. “Consequently, [they] can show where vegetation is thriving and where it is stressed, where droughts are occurring, where wildland fire is a danger, and where erosion has altered coastlines or river courses. We think it’s important for people to have free access to this type of information that gives all of us a truly clear picture of how the Earth has changed as a result of human impact,” Google spokesperson Nathan Tyler told TechNewsWorld.
