SMAP

Soil Moisture Active Passive

active Mission

A satellite to map soil moisture, detecting whether soils are frozen or thawed, to help scientists understand the links between Earth's water, energy, and carbon cycles, and improve predictions of weather, climate, floods, and droughts.

Type

Orbiter

Launch

Jan. 31, 2015

Target

Earth

Objective

Measure and map Earth's soil moisture and freeze/thaw state to better understand water, carbon, and energy cycles

SMAP Stories

Explore All SMAP Stories

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Great Air Quality for the Great Lakes Region

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Drought Makes its Home on the Range

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NASA Watches Water to Help Grow our Groceries

Article3 years ago

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From Seed to Market: NASA Brings Food to the Table

Article3 years ago

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Machine Learning Model Doubles Accuracy of Global Landslide ‘Nowcasts’

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The image is divided horizontally by an undulating line between a cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively clear upper portion. Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing innumerable stars of many sizes. The smallest of these are small, distant, and faint points of light. The largest of these appear larger, closer, brighter, and more fully resolved with 8-point diffraction spikes. The upper portion of the image is blueish, and has wispy translucent cloud-like streaks rising from the nebula below. The orangish cloudy formation in the bottom half varies in density and ranges from translucent to opaque. The stars vary in color, the majority of which have a blue or orange hue. The cloud-like structure of the nebula contains ridges, peaks, and valleys – an appearance very similar to a mountain range. Three long diffraction spikes from the top right edge of the image suggest the presence of a large star just out of view.

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