Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/EMITL1BRAD
EMITL1BRAD·v001·dataset

Calibrated raw image brightness and location (EMIT, 60 m)

EMIT L1B At-Sensor Calibrated Radiance and Geolocation Data 60 m V001
heliosphere NASA LPCLOUD Level 1B active netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Calibrated measurements of how much light the sensor recorded across 285 narrow color bands from visible to shortwave infrared, at 60 m detail, paired with information on exactly where and at what angle each pixel was viewed.

How it's made. Captured by the EMIT imaging spectrometer mounted on the International Space Station, delivered in a spatially raw form before any map-straightening is applied.

How & where you'd use it. A building-block input designed to reveal the mineral makeup of dusty, arid regions; most users work with the higher-level mineral products derived from it rather than this raw radiance directly.

What's measured

SUN-EARTH INTERACTIONS › SOLAR ACTIVITY › SOLAR IRRADIANCEATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITYSPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › ULTRAVIOLET WAVELENGTHS › ULTRAVIOLET RADIANCESPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › VISIBLE WAVELENGTHS › VISIBLE RADIANCESPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › INFRARED WAVELENGTHS › INFRARED RADIANCESPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › SENSOR CHARACTERISTICS › GEOLOCATIONSPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › SENSOR CHARACTERISTICS › VIEWING GEOMETRY

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2022-08-09 → ongoing
  • Measured byISS (EMIT Imaging Spectrometer)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-180, -54, 180, 54
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Monitor solar activity and space weather
  • Track flares, the solar wind and geomagnetic storms
Official description

The Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) instrument measures surface mineralogy, targeting the Earth’s arid dust source regions. EMIT is installed on the International Space Station (ISS) and uses imaging spectroscopy to take mineralogical measurements of sunlit regions of interest between 52° N latitude and 52° S latitude. An interactive map showing the regions being investigated, current and forecasted data coverage, and additional data resources can be found on the VSWIR Imaging Spectroscopy Interface for Open Science (VISIONS) [EMIT Open Data Portal](https://earth.jpl.nasa.gov/emit/data/data-portal/coverage-and-forecasts/). The EMIT Level 1B At-Sensor Calibrated Radiance and Geolocation (EMITL1BRAD) Version 1 data product provides at-sensor calibrated radiance values along with observation data in a spatially raw, non-orthocorrected format. Each EMITL1BRAD granule consists of two Network Common Data Format 4 (NetCDF4) files at a spatial resolution of 60 meters (m): Radiance (EMIT_L1B_RAD) and Observation (EMIT_L1B_OBS). The Radiance file contains the at-sensor radiance measurements of 285 bands with a spectral range of 381-2493 nanometers (nm) and with a spectral resolution of ~7.5 nm, which are held within a single science dataset layer (SDS). The Observation file contains viewing and solar geometries, timing, topographic, and other information related to the observation. Each NetCDF4 file holds a location group containing geometric lookup tables (GLT), which are orthorectified images that provide relative x and y reference locations from the raw scene to allow for projection of the data. Along with the GLT layers, the files also contain latitude, longitude, and elevation layers. The latitude and longitude coordinates are presented using the World Geodetic System (WGS84) ellipsoid. The elevation data was obtained from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission v3 (SRTM v3) data and resampled to EMIT’s spatial resolution. Each granule is approximately 75 kilometers (km) by 75 km, nominal at the equator, with some granules at the end of an orbit segment reaching 150 km in length. Known Issues * Data acquisition gap: From September 13, 2022, through January 6, 2023, a power issue outside of EMIT caused a pause in operations. Due to this shutdown, no data were acquired during that timeframe.

Get the data

emitl1brad_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="EMITL1BRAD",
    version="001",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from LPCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.