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Full catalog/MYD09GQ
MYD09GQ·v061·dataset

True surface color each day (Aqua, 250 m)

MODIS/Aqua Surface Reflectance Daily L2G Global 250m SIN Grid V061
land NASA LPCLOUD Level 2G active HDF-EOS2
In plain English

What it measures. An estimate of the true land-surface color in two bands (red and near-infrared) at 250-meter resolution, with the haze of the atmosphere removed. It also carries quality and viewing-angle layers.

How it's made. Derived daily from the Aqua satellite's MODIS instrument and placed on a global grid, after correcting for atmospheric gases, aerosols and scattering.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for monitoring vegetation, crops and land cover, ideally paired with the matching 500-meter product for quality details. Note that one of its bands has long-standing detector problems users should account 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 MYD09GQ Version 6.1 product provides an estimate of the surface spectral reflectance of Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250 meter (m) bands 1 and 2, corrected for atmospheric conditions such as gasses, aerosols, and Rayleigh scattering. Along with the 250 m bands are the Quality Assurance (QA) layer and five observation layers. This product is intended to be used in conjunction with the quality and viewing geometry information of the 500 m product (MYD09GA). 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

myd09gq_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MYD09GQ",
    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.