Earth and Planetary Sciences

Visit https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/climate/data for climate related data.

Planet Labs provides daily satellite images of the Earth’s land surfaces and coastal areas. Natural color, near infra-red, and other multi-channel imagery products are available with 5m, 3.7m and 50cm ground pixel resolution. Images are exportable to GIS systems or can be viewed and analyzed using Planet's website and tools. PlanetScope (3.7m) satellite images are available daily, starting in 2014. SkySat (50cm) images are available for selected areas and time periods, starting in 2016. RapidEye (5m) is from 2009-2020.

Access restricted to UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab faculty, staff, and students. New users must first complete registration form. The UC Berkeley Library manages the license and registrations (5/1/24-4/30/25).

• PlanetScope ~ 3.7m resolution in four spectral bands: RGB and Near Infrared

• SkySat archive ~ 50cm resolution imagery older than 6 months (no imagery within the past 6 months)

• RapidEye archive ~5m resolution imagery archive from 2009 to 2020

• Basemaps - time series mosaicked products optimized for either visual reflectance (8-bit) or radiometric consistency (16-bit)

• Planet Stories - a simple tool to provide imagery time-lapse

• Access to imagery via an API, web applications or GIS integrations

For more information about Planet, see Planet.com and the Planet documentation portal.

• Planet Integrations

  Planet’s GIS Integrations with ArcGIS Pro and QGIS as well as Google Earth Engine (GEE) documentation)

• Getting Started with Planet API keys

  Planet has a range of APIs, such as the Data API for searching Planet's data catalog, Orders API for creating analysis-ready data, and Subscriptions API for subscribing and monitoring continuous cloud delivery of imagery and metadata collections.

• Open Tools for Planet (Python, Jupyter Notebooks, GitHub)

  Access python library's, Jupyter Notebook, and Planet's GitHub repo along with other tools and resources that make it easier to work with Planet imagery.

• Planet Documentation Portal

  Browse user guides, documentation and full API references for Planet's APIs, GIS Integrations, Imagery and Apps.

• Planet University

  Access tutorials, on-demand webinars, upcoming webinars and more.

• Planet Community

  Space for latest product updates, community forums, and much more.

Guidance:

Please visit Planet University for events opportunities and online trainings and Planet Community to post questions, share ideas, and connect with others using Planet. 

Citations: 

For journal articles, use the following citation:

• Planet Team (20xx). Planet Application Program Interface: In Space for Life on Earth. San Francisco, CA https://api.planet.com/

For figure captions, use...

• “Image Ⓒ[year of capture], Planet Labs PBC.”

Many thanks to Amy Work, GIS Librarian at UC San Diego, for providing content for this guide section on Planet Data.