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This high-resolution satellite image was collected by Space Imaging's IKONOS satellite on September 8, 2002. The image shows a giant jack-o'-lantern planted on a five-acre corn maze field. The maze is located on Robert and Billie Mason's farm near Pine Mountain State Resort Park, adjacent to the Kentucky Ridge State Forest in Bell County, Kentucky.
The jack-o'-lantern's eyes measure 75 feet on each side and the teeth are constructed of sunflowers. The nose contains a 5-foot-high platform to keep maze visitors from getting lost. The IKONOS images were captured as part of the Kentucky Landscape Snapshot (KLS) Project. In February, NASA granted $1.3 million to the state of Kentucky's Governor's Office for Technology to monitor, map and assess the state's forests and urban environment. Space Imaging signed a three-year contract with the state of Kentucky to create a high-tech, digital portrait or map of the entire state. Along with imagery from the US Landsat satellites, the KLS Project will use Space Imaging's high-resolution images and processing technologies to study changes to the state's natural and man-made landscapes. The first product to be delivered in the spring of 2003 will be an up-to-date land cover/land use digital map of Kentucky. The second phase of the contract involves the development of decision support tools for forest and urban management. The final phase of the project is to operationalize change detection methods within various state government agencies.
The 1600-pound IKONOS satellite travels 423 miles above the Earth's surface at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour. It's the world's first commercial high-resolution remote sensing satellite and can see objects on the ground as small as one-meter square. IKONOS has collected more than 900,000 images of the earth's surface representing imagery over every continent. For more information
about Kentucky's NASA grant, see:
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