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Full catalog/MYD09GA
MYD09GA·v061·dataset

True surface color each day (Aqua, 500 m)

MODIS/Aqua Surface Reflectance Daily L2G Global 1km and 500m SIN Grid V061
land NASA LPCLOUD Level 2G active HDF-EOS2
In plain English

What it measures. An estimate of the true color of the land surface across seven bands at 500-meter resolution, cleaned of atmospheric effects, plus a set of coarser 1-kilometer observation layers and quality flags.

How it's made. Derived daily from the Aqua MODIS instrument and gridded globally, with corrections for atmospheric gases, aerosols and scattering applied.

How & where you'd use it. A widely used base layer for many other land products and for tracking vegetation, crops, snow and land cover. Be aware one band has known detector problems that users should screen for.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › SURFACE RADIATIVE PROPERTIES › REFLECTANCE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2002-07-04 → ongoing
  • Measured byAqua (MODIS)
  • Processing levelLevel 2G
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsHDF-EOS2
  • 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 MYD09GA Version 6.1 product provides an estimate of the surface spectral reflectance of Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Bands 1 through 7, corrected for atmospheric conditions such as gasses, aerosols, and Rayleigh scattering. Provided along with the 500 meter (m) surface reflectance, observation, and quality bands are a set of ten 1 kilometer observation bands and geolocation flags. The reflectance layers from the MYD09GA are used as the source data for many of the MODIS land products. Known Issues * Prior to the Aqua MODIS launch, Band 6 exhibited several anomalous detectors. Band 6 performance degraded seriously after launch and presently a majority of the Band 6 detectors are non-functional. Science users should read and use the non-functional detector flags and decide for themselves the optimum manner to handle non-functional detector "gaps" for their products. For complete information please refer to the [MODIS Characterization Support Team (MCST) website](https://mcst.gsfc.nasa.gov/time-dependent-list-non-functional-or-noisy-detector). * For complete information about known issues please refer to the [MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website](https://landweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/knownissue?sensor=MODIS&sat=Aqua&as=61).

Get the data

myd09ga_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MYD09GA",
    version="061",
    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.