Sentinel-1D User Data Opening from 17 April 2026 - Sentinel Online

Last week’s additional ESA news on the operational data opening:
sentinels.copernicus.eu/web/sentinel...

🥳
Here we go: Sentinel-1D is available operationally and data have started to accumulate over the weekend.

Easiest way to access them is via Copernicus Browser, where a filter for Sentinel-1D has been added last Friday.

#EarthObservation #Copernicus #Sentinel1
browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu

Warum die Angaben zu Demo-Teilnehmern oft auseinandergehen Erst die Bauernproteste, dann die Demonstrationen gegen rechts: In den vergangenen Wochen gingen viele Menschen in Deutschland auf die Straße. Wie viele genau, da sind sich Veranstalter und Polizei me...

Good opportunity to take a look at this nice (German) article from two years ago, about the difficulties of determining participant count.
Would be better to indicate a range if numbers are uncertain.
www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder...

Turnout and media coverage were ok but organizers and police reported very different participant counts. Not great for building trust.

Anyway, even in the middle of another oil crisis it’s more of a niche thing, while the majority of people can’t be bothered.

www.france24.com/en/live-news...

Map of Germany showing the four locations of the demonstrations on April, 18: Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, and Munich. From https://erneuerbare-energien-verteidigen.de/demos/.

People will take to the streets in four major German cities this Saturday to protest against the government’s plans to limit renewable energy installation.
Organizers demand to rather focus on upgrading the power grid and installing storage capacities.
erneuerbare-energien-verteidigen.de

✈️ DLR's Falcon 20E flew behind a passenger aircraft & found that less soot doesn't mean fewer contrails. Tiny fuel & oil particles can form ice crystals too – meaning aviation's climate impact is bigger than we thought. The study, published in Nature, will help improve aviation's climate impact.

Infographic of OroraTech’s FOREST-2 thermal satellite showing applications including wildfire, urban heat, and climate research.

Thermal sensing extends beyond hotspots🌍

FOREST-2, developed by OroraTech, detects both active fires and lower-intensity heat sources — helping researchers better track wildfire behaviour, monitor urban heat and understand how temperature extremes evolve.

Read more🔗 earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...

A firm reminder at a moment the world seems to need it.

Easter Sunday = spring sun + ice cream. Always. It’s a law.

A Historian Spent 30 Years Interviewing Nazis. He Identified 12 Warning Signs of Fascism. All 12 Are Present in Trump's America Right Now. The evidence is not opinion. It is public record. And it demands your attention before November.

"In Jan 2025, Laurence Rees published The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings from History. He laid out the twelve specific patterns, the twelve warning signs, the twelve psychological and political conditions that allowed a cultured, educated, democratic nation to descend into fascism and commit genocide.

Orion Camera View of Artemis II Climb to Orbit - NASA A view from cameras on board the Orion spacecraft as it climbs to orbit, powered by the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket following a 6:35 p.m. EDT liftoff on April 1, 2026. Included is the jettison…

I did not really expect to get excited about Artemis but the pictures and videos have me shaking, like this one I just watched:
www.nasa.gov/video-detail...
www.nasa.gov/gallery/jour...

OMG

#ClimateAction
That’s true. We are not helpless victims, we can lead.

And we can elect people who care about climate change. Voting is an important climate action.

The thread is a great read, discussing all the actions and arguments.

We do have the most beautiful planet of all.

Comet 3I/ATLAS – frequently asked questions Note that this list is regularly updated as we learn more about interstellar comet 3I/ATLASFor an overview of all ESA observations of 3I/ATLAS, please visit esa.int/3IATLAS

Following the links in the text, you can quickly learn more if you want.
3I/ATLAS FAQs:
www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

Five things Juice has revealed about Comet 3I/ATLAS ‘Extreme but not exotic,’ – a glimpse at Comet 3I/ATLAS through the eyes of the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice).

Took three months for the data to reach Earth and scientists to start exploring them but now first results are here:
www.esa.int/Science_Expl... VC

Only the THIRD comet from outside our solar system ever observed: 3I/ATLAS

ESA’s JUICE mission, on its years-long journey to Jupiter, turned on its instruments last November to find out more about its behavior.

Moon Mission Orbit Animations Interactive 2D/3D lunar mission orbit visualizations by Sankar Viswanathan

Interactive to-scale, 3D animation of Artemis II mission orbit using NASA/JPL HORIZONS ephemeris data.
sankara.net/astro/lunar-...
Also features 36 other lunar missions.
sankara.net/astro/lunar-...
#Artemis2

The complete new Sentinel-1 constellation is expected to be in place around early July.

The resulting constellation of Sentinel-1C and 1D will have a 6-day revisit cycle as the original constellation of 1A and 1B but shifted by 1 day.

Sentinel-1D user data opening and future plans - Sentinel Online Sentinel-1D user data opening and future plans

Goodbye Sentinel-1A 🥲. Phase-out starting.

It’s actually good news because the new Sentinel-1D satellite is almost ready to take over and data are to start flowing from mid of this month.

#EarthObservation #Copernicus #Sentinel1
sentinels.copernicus.eu/web/sentinel...

Reminder that Trump has, since returning to office, committed a grand total of zero new dollars in military aid to Ukraine (the tiny amount at the start of 2025 was agreed under the Biden administration).

www.kielinstitut.de/topics/war-a...

Sommerzeit: Ist die Zeitumstellung wirklich so schlimm? In der Nacht sind die Uhren wieder um eine Stunde vorgestellt worden. Viele Menschen haben ein Problem damit. Doch welche wissenschaftlichen Argumente gibt es für oder gegen die Sommerzeit? Von H. Nor...

Fazit des diesjährigen Artikels zur Sommerzeit: Am besten wäre dauerhafte Winterzeit, am zweitbesten ist die Zeitumstellung und am schlechtesten wäre dauerhafte Sommerzeit.

www.tagesschau.de/wissen/gesun...

Völkerrecht: Gutachten des Bundestags hält Irankrieg für völkerrechtswidrig Ein Bundestagsgutachten sieht den US-israelischen Krieg gegen den Iran als Bruch der UN-Charta. Die Begründungen für den Angriff seien "nicht stringent".

Expert opinion for the German Bundestag stating the obvious: The Iran war is illegal. The only surprise here is that this needs an expert opinion and that it took so long.

www.zeit.de/politik/deut...

Data portrait:
“Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) produces the largest global dataset on democracy with over 32 million data points for 202 countries and territories from 1789 to 2025. Involving over 4,200 scholars and other country experts, V-Dem measures over 600 different attributes of democracy.”

Democracy Reports – V-Dem Released by the V-Dem Institute annually in March

Figure from the V-DEM Democracy Report 2026.
The report can be downloaded at
v-dem.net/publications...
and includes a chapter dedicated to the state of US democracy.

Liberal Democracy Index level in the USA from 1955 to 2025 compared to the regional average for Western Europe and North America. Sharp declines during Trump presidencies 1 and 2 are marked in red. Source: https://www.v-dem.net/documents/75/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy_Report_2026_lowres.pdf

This is insane.
Show this to everyone who’s not up for protests yet.

US-Israeli war on Iran is 'breach of international law': German president German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke on Tuesday of a "deep rift" with traditional ally the United States and said the US-Israeli war on Iran was a "breach of international law".

#USA #Israel #Iran
www.france24.com/en/live-news...

Schematic depiction of Global Observing System data sources from https://wmo.int/site/knowledge-hub/programmes-and-initiatives/global-observing-system-gos

Every weather forecast starts with a global model and relies on international data exchange.
Data come from surface stations and weather balloons. Ocean buoys and ships. Aircraft and satellites.

wmo.int/site/world-m...

World Weather Watch Collecting, exchanging, processing and providing climate and hydrological observations, forecasts and data exchange to all WMO programmes. The World Weather Watch (WWW) is one of the crowning…

Some piece of meteorological history for #WorldMetDay

wmo.int/world-weathe...

Germany’s loyal support to Israel that is rooted in the historical guilt of the holocaust seems no longer unconditional.