What’s next from space? It’s all good for the ⓟlanet 🌎 🌍 🌏 🛰
10 years ago, Planet first formed in a Silicon Valley garage; they had not yet incorporated and were exploring how best to stay true to their environmental mission over the long run. 10 years ago, I led their first financing and became their first outside board member. Today, Planet raster scans the entire Earth every day, and on Tuesday, they are holding a free conference on all the ways this massive data set can be used for the betterment of life on Earth: https://explore21.planet.com
Planet gathers 10x as much Earth imagery as all other companies combined. With an AI overlay, they can now count every tree on Earth every day and quantify carbon credits. They can track daily water reservoir levels, vegetation and coral reef health, new housing starts, new roads, new fracking pads, industrial and retail activity… globally. This was not possible before. This week, we will see many examples of what’s next from this global time-series dataset.
And they are now visiting more than once a day. Timliness allows responders to compare before and after imagery of any natural disaster… to catch illegal ocean bottom-trawling or deforestation as it happens… to discover human rights abuses or military activity.
The first image of the entire Earth from space — the Pale Blue Dot perched like a fragile lifeboat in the black void of space — helped galvanize the environmental movement in the 70’s. Planet is now zooming in, affording more visibility to a changing Earth than ever before.
Go Planet, Go, Go, Go! Will Marshall, Robbie Schingler, Chris Boshuizen
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