True surface colors, near real-time (Terra, 250 m)
What it measures. An estimate of the true colors of the land surface as you'd see them at ground level if the air were perfectly clear, for two of MODIS's bands at 250-meter detail. It strips out the haze and gases that distort satellite views.
How it's made. Generated quickly (near real-time) from the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite, corrected for atmospheric effects and arranged onto a daily global grid.
How & where you'd use it. Because it's produced fast, it's handy for time-sensitive monitoring like tracking fires, floods, and dust. It's meant to be used together with the companion MOD09GA product, which holds the quality and viewing details.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2015-12-06 → ongoing
- Measured byTERRA (MODIS)
- Processing levelLevel 2G
- Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
- FormatsHDF-EOS
- StatusACTIVE
What you can do with it
- Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
- Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
- Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description
The MODIS Near Real Time (NRT) Surface Reflectance products are an estimate of the surface spectral reflectance as it would be measured at ground level in the absence of atmospheric scattering or absorption. Low-level data are corrected for atmospheric gases and aerosols, yielding a level-2 basis for several higher-order gridded level-2 (L2G) and level-3 products. MOD09GQ provides Bands 1 and 2 at a 250-meter resolution in a daily gridded L2G product in the Sinusoidal projection. Science Data Sets provided for this product include reflectance for Bands 1 and 2 a quality rating observation coverage and observation number. This product is meant to be used in conjunction with MOD09GA where important quality and viewing geometry information is stored.Additional information at LPDAAC:https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/dataset_discovery/modis/modis_products_table
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="MOD09GQ",
version="6NRT",
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 LANCEMODISBrowsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.