Earth Science

Terra

Orbiter · Directed · Agency-led · Launched on December 18, 1999 · Extended Mission · LCC: $1.7B/$3.8B (2025 $)Life-cycle cost: NASA’s reported cost to build, launch, and operate a mission through its prime mission, plus documented partner contributions, in 2025 dollars. Extended missions are not included. Methods · Wikipedia

Scope Active Mission WindowActivePapers published from the first full month after science operations begin through two years after the mission ends. Citations are counted through the third calendar year after each paper appears. For Terra, papers published March 1, 2000 to January 1, 2024. Methods LifetimeLifetimeEvery tracked publication to date, with every citation to date. For Terra, papers published from 2000 to November 3, 2026. Methods
Tracked publicationsTracked publications: peer-reviewed papers we found that name the mission or its instruments in their titles, abstracts, or keywords. Papers that used the data without naming it are missed. Methods15,039
CitationsCitations: every citation these publications have drawn to date. Older missions have had longer to collect them. Methods582,811
Citation indices
h-indexh-index: the largest h such that h papers have at least h citations each. It only grows with time, so older missions score higher. Methods247
g-indexg-index: the largest g for which the g most-cited papers together hold at least g² citations. Like the h-index, but it lets the most-cited papers count for more. Methods424
m-indexm-index: a mission’s h-index divided by the years since its first peer-reviewed paper. It falls every 1 January even when nothing else changes; the figure shown is as of November 3, 2026. It also discounts the long operating life that larger missions paid for. Methods9.1
toritori (total research impact, from SciX): for every paper citing one of the mission’s papers, 1 divided by the citing paper’s reference count times the cited paper’s author count, summed, with self-citations removed. It favors citations from papers with short reference lists and from outside the mission’s own authors. Computed over the tracked citation graph, which can be slightly incomplete. Always over every tracked publication to date, whichever scope is chosen. Methods3,748
riqriq (research impact quotient): 1,000 times the square root of tori, divided by the years since the mission’s first paper. A rate, not a total, so it does not keep growing with age the way the h-index and tori do. Like tori, always over every tracked publication to date. Methods2,186

Publications and citations by year (lifetime)

Publications per yearCumulative citations

Institutional contributions (lifetime)The institutions SciX lists for each paper’s authors, as printed on the paper, located through the Research Organization Registry. A square counts a paper once, however many of its authors worked there. Methods

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Tracked publications over the lifetime (15,039)

All publications CSV · JSON

  1. Overview of the radiometric and biophysical performance of the MODIS vegetation indices

    Huete, A., 2002, RSEnv

    7,275 lifetime citations

  2. FLUXNET: A New Tool to Study the Temporal and Spatial Variability of Ecosystem-Scale Carbon Dioxide, Water Vapor, and Energy Flux Densities.

    Baldocchi, Dennis, 2001, BAMS

    2,857 lifetime citations

  3. The MODIS Aerosol Algorithm, Products, and Validation.

    Remer, L. A., 2005, JAtS

    2,350 lifetime citations

  4. Global fire emissions and the contribution of deforestation, savanna, forest, agricultural, and peat fires (1997-2009)

    van der Werf, G. R., 2010, ACP

    2,110 lifetime citations

  5. Global land cover mapping from MODIS: algorithms and early results

    Friedl, M. A., 2002, RSEnv

    2,053 lifetime citations

  6. Monitoring vegetation phenology using MODIS

    Zhang, Xiaoyang, 2003, RSEnv

    1,947 lifetime citations

  7. First operational BRDF, albedo nadir reflectance products from MODIS

    Schaaf, Crystal B., 2002, RSEnv

    1,928 lifetime citations

  8. A simple method for reconstructing a high-quality NDVI time-series data set based on the Savitzky-Golay filter

    Chen, Jin, 2004, RSEnv

    1,765 lifetime citations

  9. The Collection 6 MODIS aerosol products over land and ocean

    Levy, R. C., 2013, AMT

    1,626 lifetime citations

  10. Development of a two-band enhanced vegetation index without a blue band

    Jiang, Zhangyan, 2008, RSEnv

    1,561 lifetime citations

  11. Change detection techniques

    Lu, D., 2004, IJRS

    1,549 lifetime citations

  12. Global products of vegetation leaf area and fraction absorbed PAR from year one of MODIS data

    Myneni, R. B., 2002, RSEnv

    1,529 lifetime citations

  13. On the Blending of the Landsat and MODIS Surface Reflectance: Predicting Daily Landsat Surface Reflectance

    Gao, Feng, 2006, ITGRS

    1,493 lifetime citations

  14. The MODIS Cloud Products: Algorithms and Examples From Terra

    Platnick, Steven, 2003, ITGRS

    1,437 lifetime citations

  15. A Continuous Satellite-Derived Measure of Global Terrestrial Primary Production

    Running, Steven W., 2004, BiSci

    1,399 lifetime citations

  16. Detecting trend and seasonal changes in satellite image time series

    Verbesselt, Jan, 2010, RSEnv

    1,339 lifetime citations

  17. Development of a global evapotranspiration algorithm based on MODIS and global meteorology data

    Mu, Qiaozhen, 2007, RSEnv

    1,328 lifetime citations

  18. Preliminary analysis of the performance of the Landsat 8/OLI land surface reflectance product

    Vermote, Eric, 2016, RSEnv

    1,312 lifetime citations

  19. A Landsat Surface Reflectance Dataset for North America, 1990─2000

    Masek, Jeffrey G., 2006, IGRSL

    1,308 lifetime citations

  20. An Enhanced Contextual Fire Detection Algorithm for MODIS

    Giglio, Louis, 2003, RSEnv

    1,250 lifetime citations

How we found these papers

We searched NASA’s Science Explorer (SciX) for peer-reviewed articles naming Terra in the title, abstract or keywords; standard filters drop articles that are not peer-reviewed and magazine pieces.

(((abs:Terra AND abs:(ASTER OR CERES OR MODIS OR MISR OR MOPITT)) OR =abs:"Terra Earth-Observing" OR =abs:"Terra Earth Observing" OR =abs:"Terra spacecraft" OR =abs:"Terra satellite" OR =abs:"Terra satellites" OR =abs:"Terra and Aqua" OR =abs:"Aqua and Terra" OR (abs:"EOS-AM1" AND abs:(Terra OR satellite OR MODIS OR ASTER OR MISR OR MOPITT OR CERES)) OR =abs:"EOS AM-1" OR =abs:"Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere" OR =abs:"Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere" OR =abs:"Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer" OR =abs:"Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer" OR =abs:"Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer" OR (abs:MOPITT AND abs:(carbon OR monoxide OR troposphere OR pollution)) OR (abs:MISR AND abs:(aerosol OR cloud OR radiance OR satellite OR reflectance OR smoke)) OR (abs:ASTER AND abs:(satellite OR radiometer OR thermal OR elevation OR remote)) OR ((=abs:"Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer" OR =abs:"Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System") AND abs:Terra) OR ((=abs:"Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer" OR =abs:"Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System") AND NOT abs:Aqua))) AND property:refereed AND doctype:article AND pubdate:[2000-03 TO 2040-01] AND NOT bibstem:("A&R" OR "ACPD" OR "AIASJ" OR "AMTD" OR "AeAm" OR "AirSp" OR "AsNow" OR "AsUAI" OR "AvWST" OR "BGD" OR "C&E" OR "C&T" OR "CAPJ" OR "CliPD" OR "E&S" OR "ENews" OR "ESDD" OR "ESSDD" OR "ESuDD" OR "GID" OR "GMDD" OR "GeCAS" OR "HESSD" OR "IrAJ" OR "JCos" OR "JRASC" OR "LAstr" OR "MNSSA" OR "Met" OR "NHESD" OR "NPGD" OR "NewSc" OR "OcScD" OR "Orion" OR "PhT" OR "PhTea" OR "PhuZ" OR "PhyOJ" OR "PhyW" OR "PlR" OR "SOILD" OR "SciAm" OR "SpFl" OR "TCD" OR "ZemVs")

Open in SciX

Removed after review (3)

  1. Detection of diurnal variation in orchard canopy water content using MODIS/ASTER airborne simulator (MASTER) data Uses MASTER, an airborne simulator of MODIS and ASTER; no Terra data. Decision 🤖
  2. The CloudSat radar-lidar geometrical profile product (RL-GeoProf): Updates, improvements, and selected results Compares CloudSat and CALIPSO with Aqua's MODIS cloud mask; not Terra. Decision 🤖
  3. Multi-image super-resolution in remote sensing: A review of artificial intelligence techniques and challenges Uses 'MISR' for multi-image super-resolution; not Terra's MISR instrument. Decision 🤖