LaunchDetect
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Field notes

Guides to the public map
Earth

Same Arctic ice area, different extent: September 2016 and 2024

Arctic sea-ice area is 2.91 million km² in both September rows, but extent falls 4.0%. Reproduce the NSIDC comparison and see why both can be true.

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Earth

Mauna Loa in two satellite views: a bright-light artifact and a color-scale ceiling

A Mauna Loa night image has a recovery streak; an SO₂ map ends at 100 DU. Compare the instruments, printed values and eleven-hour timing gap.

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Earth

Lake Erie’s 2011 bloom on one map grid: what the images can show

Register the October 5 Landsat and October 9 MODIS bloom images to one footprint, then separate visible color, biomass estimates and toxin measurements.

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Earth

Why the warmest Niño region had the smallest anomaly in November 2015

Niño 4 was warmer than Niño 3.4 but less anomalous. Reproduce four weeks of NOAA SST data and see how regional baselines reverse the ranking.

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Earth

Kp and Ap rank two 2024 storm days differently: a 366-day audit

May 10 and October 8 have nearly equal mean Kp but daily Ap of 105 and 54. Reproduce all eight intervals and the full 2024 aggregation check.

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Evidence study

GOES-16 in 2019: an audited calibration review calendar

Audit 29 GOES-16 calibration-log rows from 2019, including a repeated gap notice, distinct same-day intervals and band-specific review points.

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Evidence study

Falcon Heavy in GOES imagery: two products and two clocks

Inspect NOAA’s 2019 Falcon Heavy imagery: separate the water-vapor still from the visible sequence and acquisition labels from GIF playback.

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Evidence study

Chelyabinsk: comparing radiated light with estimated impact energy

Convert Chelyabinsk’s reported radiated energy to 89.6 kt, compare it with the 441-kt impact estimate, and keep source revisions visible.

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Evidence study

Test satellite-map axis order with a real NASA GIBS scene

A reproduced WMS 1.1.1 and 1.3.0 test matches NASA GIBS pixels, while a wrong-axis request returns HTTP 200 and a black image.

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Evidence study

Lake Mead’s 276 monthly readings: what elevation can tell us

An audit of Lake Mead’s 2000–2022 monthly elevations finds a 169.44-foot endpoint decline, 111 rises and clear limits on storage claims.

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launch_schedule_precision

Why one California launch window spans two UTC dates

Convert a real October 2026 Starlink interval between UTC and California time, keeping both endpoints and the source-read date intact.

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launch_schedule_case

Europa Clipper after Milton: a launch-date change in three NASA records

Trace Europa Clipper’s prior October 10 target, conditional October 14 plan and confirmed liftoff, while keeping source dates separate from event dates.

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professional_archive_workflow

GOES-U, GOES-19 and GOES East: one satellite, three dated labels

Resolve GOES-U and GOES-19 against five real commissioning milestones, and separate first-image acquisition, public release and the GOES East handover.

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imagery_literacy

EPIC’s green Moon edge: inspect a real color-timing artifact

An untouched NASA EPIC frame and 31 reproducible RGB samples show what a colored edge can establish, and why display pixels are not raw sensor channels.

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launch_schedule_precision

PACE launch weather: compare forecasts for the same target day

Four NASA PACE forecasts show why issue dates and launch dates belong on separate axes, and why the comparable revision is 60% to 50%.

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Evidence study

Caldor Fire maps: three layers, three different training labels

A worked reading of two Caldor Fire frames separates active detections, front history and burned area before they become machine-learning labels.

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Evidence study

Saharan dust in 2020: a map and a lidar slice answer different questions

Read real GEOS maps beside a CALIOP transect to separate modeled dust optical thickness, sampled plume height and unsupported regional claims.

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Evidence study

Huntington Beach oil-spill images: the 16-hour comparison gap

Two real 2021 spill images reveal different observables. Reproduce their 16-hour-33-minute time gap before comparing Landsat and Sentinel-1B.

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Evidence study

Black Marble HD: what a 30-meter output grid really adds

Work through the 500-to-30-meter grid ratio in a real Black Marble HD study, without confusing sharper output with independent night observations.

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Evidence study

DART’s 2024 period numbers: why 18 seconds go missing

Reproduce DART’s reported orbital-period arithmetic and see why a rounded 11h55m baseline cannot recover a second-level change.

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Evidence study

Crew-13 launch status: what EventScheduled actually means

A worked Crew-13 record comparison separates NASA liftoff evidence, LaunchDetect status, Schema.org semantics and timestamp precision.

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Evidence study

Cuba 2019: the lightning mapper frame that contains a meteor

A two-region audit of a real GOES-16 frame shows why a lightning product name cannot classify every optical signal it contains.

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Evidence study

Harvey at Rosharon: why a week-late Landsat image still caught high water

A 32-day USGS river record explains why the September 5, 2017 Landsat image still showed high water seven days after the highest daily mean.

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Evidence study

The 2024 eclipse: a real test of a simple image-change rule

Reproduce a 48-frame NOAA eclipse-video test: one fixed patch triggers 17 change flags, while a comparison patch triggers none at the same threshold.

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