🛰️ LATEST LANDSAT IMAGERY
Recent Landsat imagery from the NASA image library
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Landsat 9 is circling Earth right now at about 705 km, photographing the planet’s land surface in strips 185 km wide — the newest satellite in a NASA/USGS program that has been imaging Earth continuously since 1972. Because it flies a near-polar orbit, it passes over every location on Earth. It’s a faint naked-eye target at around magnitude 4.5 — a steady moving point in a dark sky. Its live position and your next visible pass are below.
OrbitalNodes.ai tracks Landsat 9 in real time from live orbital data. There’s something quietly satisfying about watching it cross your sky knowing that at that exact moment it’s photographing the ground beneath it — imagery anyone can download for free. We show its position now and predict when it will pass over you.
🛰️ TRACK LANDSAT 9 LIVELandsat 9 photographs Earth’s land surface, over and over, forever. Every orbit it images a 185 km-wide strip of ground at 30 m resolution across 11 spectral bands — visible light, infrared, and thermal. Every 16 days it has covered the entire planet, and because it flies in formation with Landsat 8 (offset by 8 days), the pair re-image every point on Earth roughly weekly.
That relentless repetition is the point. The Landsat program has photographed Earth continuously since 1972 — the longest unbroken record of the planet’s surface in existence — which is how scientists measure deforestation, glacier retreat, crop health, urban growth and wildfire scars over decades. And all of it is free: anyone can download Landsat imagery from USGS.
Landsat 9 flies a sun-synchronous orbit — tuned so that it always crosses the equator at about 10:00am local solar time heading south. That’s a scientific choice: every image of a given place is taken under near-identical morning lighting, decade after decade, which is what makes 50+ years of pictures directly comparable.
For skywatchers it has a neat consequence: its passes over you cluster around the same local times every day — roughly mid-morning heading south (daylight, invisible) and roughly 10pm heading north. That late-evening pass is your window: at 705 km the satellite stays in sunlight well after dark on the ground, especially in summer.
Yes — but be honest with your expectations. At magnitude ~4.5 it’s at the faint end of naked-eye visibility: a slow, steady point of light, similar to a dim star on the move. From a dark suburban or rural sky you can catch it unaided once you know exactly where and when to look; from a bright city, binoculars make it easy. It will never flash or blink — a steady light is the giveaway that you’ve got it.
Its one big advantage over showier satellites: because it flies pole-to-pole, it passes over everyone. Hubble never rises for most of Europe or Canada; Landsat 9 covers the whole planet. Use the pass predictor above for your exact times, then look for the steady dot crossing roughly north–south.
Just — in good conditions. At around magnitude 4.5 it sits near the naked-eye limit: visible as a faint, steady moving point from dark suburban or rural skies, hard from bright city centres. Binoculars make it easy anywhere. Use the pass predictor above for the exact time and direction.
Everywhere. Its near-polar orbit (98.2°) carries it over every point on Earth — unlike Hubble, which never rises above the horizon for most of Europe and Canada. Wherever you live, Landsat 9 crosses your sky several times a day; the question is only whether a pass lines up with darkness.
Around the same local times every day — that’s the point of its sun-synchronous orbit. It crosses on a descending (southbound) track around mid-morning, which is daylight and invisible, and on an ascending (northbound) track around 10pm local time. That evening pass is your viewing window, since at 705 km the satellite stays sunlit well after dark on the ground.
It photographs Earth’s land surface — a 185 km-wide strip on every orbit at 30 m resolution, covering the whole planet every 16 days. Its two instruments, OLI-2 (visible and infrared) and TIRS-2 (thermal), track deforestation, crops, glaciers, water use, urban growth and wildfire damage. Paired with Landsat 8, every spot on Earth is re-imaged about every 8 days.
Yes — completely. All Landsat imagery, going back to 1972, is free and open through USGS EarthExplorer. That open-data policy (since 2008) is a big part of why Landsat underpins so much environmental science, agriculture and mapping worldwide.
705 km — well above the ISS (420 km) and Hubble (~535 km). One orbit takes about 99 minutes at roughly 27,000 km/h, and the orbit is maintained precisely so its 16-day ground pattern repeats exactly.
Landsat 9 is essentially an upgraded rebuild of Landsat 8 — same design, improved sensors (better radiometric resolution, so it distinguishes subtler differences in brightness). The two fly the same orbit offset by 8 days, halving the revisit time. Landsat 9 replaced Landsat 7, which was retired after 22 years.
Landsat Next — planned for around 2030–31 — is designed as a trio of smaller satellites with sharper resolution and many more spectral bands, cutting the revisit time to about 6 days. Landsat 9 is built to operate well past its 5-year design life, as its predecessors famously did (Landsat 5 lasted 29 years).
Landsat 9 is faint — magnitude ~4.5 is a dim star on the move. Get away from direct lights, let your eyes adapt for a few minutes, and look for a steady (never blinking) point crossing roughly north–south around 10pm. Binoculars turn a hard spot into an easy one.
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