Enter your email to receive our weekly newsletter. An image of Cape Canaveral, FL, captured by NASA's Earth Observing-1.
Future images promise to reveal even more.
The first images are now in hand, and the space agency says the imagers show promise as a replacement to Landsat's 1970s-era equipment. This improved vision should allow for better monitoring of ocean pollution and crop health. And because the new satellite costs less than half of a Landsat, it could be feasible to send more than one into orbit. David Talbot is a senior editor at Technology Review . This article has an online forum .