New stamp features image of crops near Garden City
10/2/2012
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By The Telegram
A new postage stamp released Monday features a satellite image of irrigated Kansas crops taken near Garden City.
The new stamp is part of the Forever series. The sheet of 15 first-class stamps will be sold for $6.75.
The geometric shapes on the Kansas stamp are fields of wheat, alfalfa, corn and soybeans watered by center-pivot irrigation. The picture is one of 15 Forever stamps called Earthscapes, which are stamps with aerial shots of natural, agricultural and urban subjects in the U.S.
NASA's Landsat 7 satellite took the Kansas photo near Garden City in 2011. Other stamps in the series include a skyscraper, a highway interchange, the Mount St. Helens volcanic crater and log rafts on their way to a saw mill.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture uses Landsat data to monitor crop inventories across the U.S. and the globe. The images also are used to evaluate insurance claims and prevent fraud, according to NASA's website.
Seven Landsat satellites have been launched since 1972 as part of an effort to gather information about Earth. Currently a joint venture by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, the Earth-observing satellite mission — the longest continuous global record of the planet's surface from space — has contributed to the study of changes on Earth made by natural processes and human practices.