NASA and Japan make ASTER imagery available for free

The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) is one of the instruments on NASA’s Terra satellite. Although it is a NASA satellite, the instrument belongs to Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). On the first of April 2016 NASA announced that the full catalogue of imagery is being made available to the public at no cost. ASTER is used to create detailed maps of land surface temperature, reflectance and elevation. The instrument acquires images in visible and thermal infrared wavelengths, with spatial resolutions ranging from about 10 to 90 meters. The imagery has a similar resolution to Landsat imagery (approximately 30 m per pixel), so is really only suitable for viewing large scale phenomena. As with Landsat imagery its best use would be to see current events before other satellite imagery becomes available.