The Earth Observer’s 35th Anniversary

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The Earth Observer’s 35th Anniversary Welcome to a new era for The Earth Observer newsletter! Our 35th anniversary also marks the official public release of our new website. Over the past year and a half, The Earth Observer has migrated from a print publication (the last printed issue was November–December 2022) to publishing PDFs online only (final PDF issue published in May 2024) to publishing individual articles on our new site. While this move shifts The Earth Observer’s format to be more in line with that of other online publications, our intent is for the content to remain distinctive. Readers can expect to continue receiving the same quality reporting on NASA Earth Science activities that they have come to depend on from The Earth Observer for over 35 years.

The release of the website coincides with a historical milestone for The Earth Observer. It was 35 years ago – in March 1989 – that the first print issue of the newsletter was produced. At that time, The Earth Observer was a crucial communication tool for the initial group of investigators for the Earth Observing System (EOS), which had been selected that same year. They depended on the periodic delivery of the newsletter to their physical mailboxes to keep them informed about decisions made at recent science team and payload panel meetings, and other activities related to the program.  

As communication technologies have evolved, so has The Earth Observer. The interweaving tale of the evolution of EOS and The Earth Observer has been told in previous issues of our publication. (For example, see  The Earth Observer: Twenty-Five Years Telling NASA’s Earth Science Story in the March–April 2014 issue [Volume 26, Issue 2, pp. 4–13] and  A Thirtieth Anniversary Reflection by the Executive Editor in the March–April 2019 issue [Volume 31, Issue 2 – online version, pp. 1–4.) Publishing content online marks the next step in the evolution of The Earth Observer. 

On the new website, readers will find overlapping content from our November–December 2023 and final PDF issues – as well as original content. To maintain a sense of continuity with our past, the content is organized much like previous issues. There are separate sections for Feature Articles, Meeting Summaries, News Content, and “The Editor’s Corner,” as well as Calendars for NASA and Global Science Community activities. 

Given The Earth Observer’s focus on history, and in keeping with the organization of our previous website, the new site also includes an Archives section where readers can view PDFs of all previous issues of The Earth Observer. There is also a listicle in which our team has compiled links to many of our most popular historical articles. In addition to articles written to mark anniversaries of The Earth Observer (including the two referenced earlier), the page contains a link to the popular Perspectives on EOS Series. These articles originally ran in The Earth Observer from 2008–2011, with each article focusing on a particular aspect (or aspects) of the early history of EOS from the perspective of someone who lived it. There are also links to articles that have been written to mark milestone anniversaries for satellite missions and observing networks, and to summaries of several symposia that include historical information.

We hope readers find this collection of historical information a useful link to the past as The Earth Observer moves full speed ahead into its digital future.