Here’s everything you need to know about the EU’s Sentinel Earth-watching mission

Late last night, the EU launched the Sentinel-2a satellite into space, from where it will take detailed photos of the world's food crops.

 

 

The satellite was developed by the European Space Agency, and was sent up from Kourou in French Guiana aboard a Vega space rocket. Actual work is expected to begin in three or four months, once the machine has been checked thoroughly.

It's part of a wider Earth-monitoring mission by the EU called the Copernicus programme, which is costing billions of pounds to carry out.

 

So what exactly does the EU hope to achieve by monitoring the Earth's crops so closely? And how does it plan to do it? Here's everything you need to know about the mission.

By sending detailed analyses of crop spread and health back to Earth, the satellite will help agriculture and food agencies be better prepared for poor harvests and possible famine.

Natural disasters such as volcano eruptions and earthquakes have serious impacts on the local habitat, so the satellite's monitoring abilities will help the world prepare for similar events in the future.

 

Sentinel-2a has extremely powerful picture-taking abilities, thanks to a sensitive camera sensor that can detect specific wavelengths.

 

It will send images back to Earth that span both the visible and infrared parts of the light spectrum, giving a more accurate view of how healthy plants are.

The whole Copernicus project involves sending six different Sentinel satellites into space over the next few years, each with a unique type of sensor. 

 

Sentinel-1a was launched over a year ago in April 2014, and specialises in detecting land movements. It has already helped scientists gain a better understanding of the Nepal earthquake earlier this year. 

 

The next one to be launched will be Sentinel-2b at the end of next year. Other measurements to be made by different satellites include growth of megacities, spread of disease and the effects of deforestation.