NASA | What Doesn't Stay in Vegas? Sprawl.

When Landsat 5 launched on March 1, 1984, Las Vegas was a smaller city. This image series, done in honor of the satellite's 28th birthday, shows the desert city's massive growth spurt since 1972. The outward expansion of the city is shown in a false-color time lapse of data from all the Landsat satellites.

The large red areas are actually green space, mostly golf courses and city parks. You'll notice the images become a lot sharper around 1984, when new instrument designs improved the ability to resolve smaller parcels of land.

These Las Vegas images were created using reflected light from the near-infrared, red and green portions of the electromagnetic spectrum (Landsat 5 TM bands 4,3,2 and Landsat 1-3 MSS bands 4,2,1).

Landsat data have been instrumental in increasing our understanding of forest health, storm damage, agricultural trends, urban growth, and many other ongoing changes to our land resources. Studies using Landsat data have helped land managers keep track of the pace of urbanization in locations around the world.

NASA and the U.S. Department of the Interior through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) jointly manage Landsat, and the USGS preserves a 40-year archive of Landsat images with free distribution of data over the Internet. The next Landsat satellite, now known as the Landsat Data Continuty Mission (LDCM) and later to be called Landsat 8, is scheduled for a launch in January 2013.

www.nasa.gov/Landsat
http://www.nasa.gov/Landsat
landsat.usgs.gov http://landsat.usgs.gov


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• Category

  Science & Technology

[ZoldierrZzz]

Humans are like a virus on this planet... lol

[MrBiwinner]

red areas show strip joints

[Ken Stordy]

The Fraser Valley in British Columbia is being paved over too.

We are doomed

[bsommer109]

so sad...and las vegas is so ugly too. middle of the desert few trees. and all the houses are right next to each other and and identical. its like animal pens

[NightCat8]

environmental destruction...

[hyppiequest]

No, small towns want the economic boon that the large cities have. Extra tax base not from businesses, which usually get tax breaks, but workers who relocate to the area. Most local officials are business people first and foremost and it helps line their pockets. They could care less about the unsavory impacts urban sprawl brings to an area. Just growing pains to them. Money displaces common sense. I live 1.5 hours north of Atlanta in the remnants of the mountains of north Georgia. I know.

[ken131]

screw the suburbs

[af6376]

Cities are growing ever larger,expanding far beyond their original limits.This sort of fast growth is called sprawl.In the United States,Atlanta had sprawled the most in the last census,growing over 714 square miles.Cities begin to sprawl -far beyond suburbs- because construction companies find it cheaper to build outside of downtown areas. 

[Ersh on]

you meen agent smith

[LondonSpaz]

I thought Agent smith said that?