ESA Sentinel 1A: Image of Netherlands from Space - Video

Radar image of the Netherlands. 

Credit: ESA

This image over the West Coast of the Netherlands is one of the early radar scans by the Sentinel-1A satellite, which was launched on 3 April.

The satellite's advanced radar can provide imagery under all weather conditions and regardless of whether it is day or night.

It can scan Earth's surface in a range of different modes, enabling it to monitor large areas in lower resolution or to zoom in on a smaller region for a sharper view.

One of the many application areas of the data will be the surveillance of the marine environment, including monitoring oil spills and detecting ships for maritime security, as well as measuring wave height.

In this image, we can clearly see radar reflections from the ships at sea, appearing like stars in a night sky.

The two collections of 'stars' are reflections from large-scale offshore wind farms, used to generate electricity.

Other visible features include the city of Amsterdam on the centre-right side of the image, and the runways of the nearby Schiphol airport.

In the lower part of the image we can see the city of Rotterdam, with Europe's largest port extending to the left.

Sentinel-1's radar will also be used for monitoring changes in agricultural land cover – important information for areas with intensive agriculture like the Netherlands.



This image, also featured on the ESA Earth from Space video programme, was acquired on 15 April with the radar operating in 'stripmap mode', which provides coverage at a resolution of about 10 m.

Sentinel-1A is the first in a fleet of satellites being developed for Europe's Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.

The satellite is not yet in its operational orbit, but early images like this have given us a taste of what's to come.

Europe launches RoboEarth: 'Wikipedia for Robots'

A robotic arm, left, puts a package of Pringles on the serving tray of another robot to deliver it to an imaginary patient in a mock hospital room at the Technical University (TU) of Eindhoven, Netherlands, Wednesday Jan. 15, 2014. 

A group of five of Europe's top technical universities, together with technology conglomerate Royal Philips NV, are launching an open-source system dubbed "RoboEarth" Thursday. 

The heart of the mission is to accelerate the development of robots and robotic services via efficient communication with a network, or "cloud". 

AP Photo/Peter Dejong

Let the robot race begin. Expectations are high for RoboEarth, a new European-funded system to speed the development of human-serving robots.

Scientists from five major European technical universities have gathered in the Netherlands this week for its launch and to demonstrate possible applications.

The first: the deceptively simple task of delivering a glass of milk to a patient in a mock-up hospital room.

The system is sometimes billed as a kind of Wikipedia for robots, allowing them—or their programmers—to turn to it for information.

In a demonstration Wednesday at Eindhoven Technical University (TU), RoboEarth wirelessly instructed a scrappy waste bin-sized robot called "Avi" to scan a room's physical layout, including the location of the patient's bed and the placement of a carton of milk on a table nearby.

Then the system activated a second robot, the more humanoid "Amigo," which used the map provided by Avi to locate the milk, grasp it with a pincer hand and bring it to the side of the hospital bed.

That mission accomplished, he dropped it on the floor. Fortunately, it was a test run and no milk was spilled. Amigo hasn't been programmed for crying anyway.

The hospital exercise is just the beginning. Organizers say the tasks the robots are carrying out are of a technological sophistication comparable to those performed by high-end robots in automobile factories—they just look clumsier because robots that interact with humans are not performing repetitive tasks in the controlled, sanitized and predictable surroundings of a factory.

Amigo, a white robot the size of a person, uses information gathered by other robots to move towards a table to pick up a carton of milk and deliver it to an imaginary patient in a mock hospital room at the Technical University (TU) of Eindhoven, Netherlands, Wednesday Jan. 15, 2014. 

A group of five of Europe's top technical universities, together with technology conglomerate Royal Philips NV, are launching an open-source system dubbed "RoboEarth" Thursday. 

The heart of the mission is to accelerate the development of robots and robotic services via efficient communication with a network, or "cloud". 

AP Photo/Peter Dejong

STFC: SCUBA-2 reveals wild youth of the Universe

A team of astronomers from the UK, Canada and the Netherlands has begun a revolutionary new study of cosmic star-formation history, looking back in time to when the Universe was still in its lively and somewhat unruly youth.

The consortium, co-led by University of Edinburgh astrophysicist Professor James Dunlop, is using SCUBA-2, the most powerful camera ever developed for observing light at ‘sub-mm’ wavelengths (light that has a wavelength 1000 times longer than we can see with our eyes).

Prof. Dunlop presented the first results from the survey at the UK National Astronomy Meeting on 27 March 2012.

The development of SCUBA-2 was led by STFC’s UK Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh and the revolutionary camera was unveiled in December 2011 (link opens in a new window).

It is mounted on the world's largest sub-mm telescope, the 15-metre James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii.

The new project, named the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey, will run for three years and will use the camera to provide the clearest view to date of dust-enshrouded star-forming galaxies.

These objects are so remote that the light we detect left them billions of years ago, so we see them as they looked in the distant past.

With SCUBA-2 astronomers are able to study objects that existed as far back as 13 billion years ago, within the first billion years after the Big Bang.

Because stars form inside clouds of gas and dust, much of the ultraviolet light from young galaxies is absorbed by this cosmic dust which is then heated to a few tens of degrees above absolute zero (-273 degrees Celsius).

The ‘warmed’ (but still rather ‘cool’) dust then emits the absorbed energy at far-infrared wavelengths, which is then further redshifted to longer sub-mm wavelengths en-route to the Earth by the expansion of the Universe.

The first image presented here is made using the SCUBA-2 camera at a wavelength of 450 microns.
(Credit: Jim Dunlop)

Detecting such emission is a challenge, both because Earth-based telescopes are warm and hence glow at sub-mm wavelengths and because water vapour in the atmosphere both absorbs and emits light in this waveband.

To get around the problems of the atmosphere, the latest sub-mm surveys have recently been conducted from space, using the Herschel Space Observatory.

However, the relatively small size (3.5-metre diameter) of Herschel’s telescope means that the images it produces cover large areas but are rather fuzzy.

The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope primary mirror is 20 times larger in area and can provide a much sharper view of the sub-mm sky.

Prof. Dunlop is delighted by these first deep SCUBA-2 images and looking forward to more results over the next few years: “Edinburgh scientists and engineers worked hard to construct this revolutionary new instrument and, together with our colleagues in Canada and the Netherlands, we’re now seeing the fruits of our efforts.

With SCUBA-2 we can study the most violently star-forming galaxies in the young Universe, and slowly but surely start to understand how the primitive cosmos evolved into the Universe we live in today.”

The Netherlands by André Kuipers. - Composite Image

7 shots of The Netherlands taken by ESA Astronaut André Kuipers on board the ISS.

ESA Astronaut Image: Amsterdam in snow

You can see the snow at night. Amsterdam, Utrecht and Schiphol.

Credit: ESA/NASA

NASA ISS Image: Western Europe at Night

With hardware from the Earth-orbiting International Space Station appearing in the near foreground, a night time European panorama reveals city lights from Belgium and the Netherlands at bottom center.

The British Isles partially obscured by solar array panels at left, the North Sea at left center, and Scandinavia at right center beneath the end effector of the Space Station Remote Manipulator System or Canadarm2.

The image was taken by the station crew on Jan. 22, 2012.

Image Credit: NASA

ESA CryoSat: Greenland, the Netherlands and maldives look for answers on ice

ESA’s Earth Explorer CryoSat mission is dedicated to precise monitoring of changes in the thickness of marine ice floating in the polar oceans and variations in the thickness of the vast ice sheets that blanket Greenland and Antarctica.

Credits: ESA/AOES Medialab

As the impact of climate change is felt in the Arctic, ESA’s CryoSat ice mission is highlighted as a source of vital information at an exhibition in the Netherlands.

The exhibition, called Roots2Share, opened on 13 October at the museum of culture and science, Museon, in The Hague.

The aim of the exhibition is to highlight the cultural relationship between Greenland and the Netherlands and their interests in understanding more about the Arctic and how changing ice cover will affect both countries.

ESA's ice mission
Around 100 students were present at the opening to learn more about Greenland and how ice is central to the way of life in the Arctic.

The reduction of ice cover around Greenland may offer new opportunities for navigation and the exploitation of natural resources. At the same time, ice melting from the vast ice sheet that blankets the country is likely have serious consequences for low-lying lands such as the Netherlands and the Maldives.

One of the most important issues is to understand exactly how the ice is changing and what impacts this may bring to all.

By measuring variations in the thickness of the ice floating the in polar oceans and lying on land, CryoSat is collecting essential information to help answer these pressing questions.

Playing an active role in field of water management, Prince Willem-Alexander stated how important it is that CryoSat is providing detailed information on ice so that effective strategies to adapt to climate change can be adopted.

Read more on CryoSat at ESA Portal

London, Brussels and Amsterdam from Space

London – Brussels – Antwerp – Rotterdam – Amsterdam and seemingly countless towns and villages sing out on this peaceful night.

A nightscape that reveals familiar coastlines, prominent ports, and metropolitan areas.

The UK can see how much of the population is congregated around London and the South of UK.

They can also see the high energy useage in these areas.

Netherlands adds to UN climate report controversy

Netherlands adds to UN climate report controversy

The Netherlands has asked the UN climate change panel to explain an inaccurate claim in a landmark 2007 report that more than half the country was below sea level, the Dutch government said Friday.

According to the Dutch authorities, only 26 percent of the country is below sea level, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be asked to account for its figures, environment ministry spokesman Trimo Vallaart told AFP.

The incident could cause further embarrassment for the IPCC, which recently admitted a claim in the same report that global warming could melt Himalayan glaciers by 2035 was wrong.

IPCC experts calculated that 55 percent of the Netherlands was below sea level by adding the area below sea level -- 26 percent -- to the area threatened by river flooding -- 29 percent -- Vallaart said.

"They should have been clearer," Vallaart said, adding that the Dutch office for environmental planning, an IPCC partner, had exact figures.

Correcting the error had been "on the agenda several times" but had never actually happened, Vallaart said.

The spokesman said he regretted the fact that proper procedure was not followed and said it should not be left to politicians to check the IPCC's numbers.

The Dutch environment ministry will order a review of the report to see if it contains any more errors, Vallaart said.

Climate Change: Netherlands Building Dams Higher

More than 18 million cubic metres of sand are set to be poured onto the new coastal band of dunes until 2011. Photo courtesy AFP.



On the beach at Monster, bulldozers painstakingly turn sand dredged from the bottom of the North Sea bed into dunes in an ambitious effort to safeguard the Netherlands from flooding.

Stretching more than 20 kilometres (15 miles) southwards from The Hague, the project is one of many in a never-ending battle against rising sea levels attributed to global warming.

"Because it is a low-lying delta, the Netherlands is very sensitive to climate change," Water Management Deputy Minister Tineke Huizinga said on a recent visit to the bustling work site.

"If sea and river levels rise, the Netherlands will be under threat," Huizinga said, walking in yellow boots along a pipeline of several hundred metres (yards) spewing out dredged sand.

"Fortunately, the coast is safe today, but we are investing in the security of people who will live here in 50 years."

More than 18 million cubic metres of sand -- enough to fill 7,200 Olympic-sized swimming pools -- are set to be poured onto the new coastal band of dunes until 2011.

The project got underway last year at a total cost of 130 million euros (about 200 million dollars) to the Dutch state.

Sand is dredged from the bottom of the North Sea, about 15 kilometres from shore, by two specialised vessels that work in turns, day and night. The sand is then relayed to the beach via the pipeline.

Bulldozers then amass the sand to create the dunes, broaden the beach and gain territory from the sea, metre by metre.

"We had no choice but to extend the coast towards the sea," the area's flood prevention chief Michiel van Haersma Buma said.

"Our coast is relatively narrow. Houses and greenhouses lie just beyond the dunes. This area is so densely populated that we had no space to construct more dunes and dykes further inland."

The new dunes -- 30 to 60 metres wide, and rising up to 10 metres above sea level -- are going up next to an existing band of dunes. Covering them is a special type of grass with long roots to keep the sand intact.

"The more dunes there are, the less sea water can infiltrate," thus reducing the danger of contamination of fresh water inland, Haersma Buma explained.

When completed, the project would have made the 20-kilometre stretch of dune-lined beach up to 200 metres wide at low tide, compared to 180 metres at present.

The economic stakes are high: Up to 65 percent of the Netherlands' gross domestic product comes from areas that are located below sea level.

"We want to to be able to live and work in security," Huizinga said.

"It is a big investment, but the cost of protecting this area is a fraction of the cost that a flood would cause to the economy -- and that does not even take into account the social disruption and loss of life."

The government is due to unveil a new programme next year for protecting the nation from water-related consequences of global warming, at a cost to the state of around one billion euros (1.5 billion dollars) per year from 2020, water ministry spokeswoman Marie-Christine Lanser-Reusken said.

In September last year, a government-appointed commission warned that the Netherlands must spend more than 100 billion euros over the next century on dyke upgrades and coastal expansion.

The Delta commission predicted a sea level rise of between 0.65 and 1.3 metres (2.15 and 4.3 feet) by 2100, and said about nine million of the country's 16 million inhabitants already lived in areas directly shielded from the sea and rivers by dykes and dunes.

Floods in 1953 killed 1,835 people and left 72,000 homeless when a total 200,000 hectares of land in the southern provinces of Zeeland, Noord Brabant and Zuid-Holland were inundated.

Meteorite or Debris Burns up over Netherlands

A meteor lor burning space debris, lights up the night sky before shattering into pieces in the atmosphere.

Hundreds of people witnessed the fireball as it shot across the sky, making a sonic boom that rattled windows.

Amateur photographer Robert Mikaelyan captured it as it passed over Groningen in the Netherlands

Rising water levels engulf Netherlands

Much of the European coast would be affected by 2 metres (red) of sea level rise.

Sea levels should take a couple of thousand years to rise by 25 metres (red).

The map show the areas that lie within 2 and 25 metres of present sea levels.

(Image: Google – Map data © 2009 PPWK, Tele Atlas. Overlay: heywhatsthat.com)