NATURE – The first satellite-derived map of global soil moisture has been unveiled today at the Living Planet Symposium, an Earth-observation conference being held this week in Bergen, Norway. The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission — part of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) extended ‘living planet’ programme on Earth observation — was launched in November 2009. After a six-month commissioning and calibration period, the instrument became operational on 21 May. Read More
