A group of images taken by Chinese satellite SDGSAT-1 to help meet UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were unveiled in Beijing on December 20, 2021.

It is the first time the satellite images were released after its launch on November 5 from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, North China’s Shanxi Province.

SDGSAT-1 used three different imagers to take remote sensing pictures, showing the population density in cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Paris, and the environmental conditions in places including the Yangtze River Delta in eastern China and Lake Namtso on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in southwestern China.

An image of Beijing City taken by the satellite SDGSAT-1, November 26, 2021 [IMAGE: International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals]

It is the very first satellite on Earth data to help achieve 17 goals in the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” set by the UN in 2015 to stimulate actions in solving social, economic and environmental problems for humanity and the planet.

The photos were shot by the satellite’s thermal infrared, glimmer and multispectral imagers which can work in multiple modes and all-weather conditions to precisely observe environmental changes on Earth linked to human activities like urbanization, habitation and energy consumption.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the host of the science project, released the details of the imagers on December 20, 2021.

The glimmer imager showed the level of socioeconomic development and the population pattern, according to a press release. It has one panchromatic band and three color bands with spatial resolutions of 10 and 40 meters. Its data, combined with business, social and humanities data, can aid the accomplishment of UN SDGs related to building sustainable cities and communities as well as protection of underwater creatures.

The multispectral imager has seven bands and its spatial resolution is 10 meters. CAS said the data through such an imager with high Signal Noise Ratio (SNR) would help in monitoring water quality, coastal ecosystem, glacier changes and land creatures.

The thermal infrared imager has the new design of three bands and spatial resolution of 30 meters. Its working width is some 300 kilometers and can detect the temperature difference of 0.2 degree Celsius.

CAS said that it can be used in precise monitoring of surface temperature of land and water, and offer basic data for crop growth, energy consumption, and pest and disease occurrence prediction.

Source: CGTN