Coastal Dunes, Sado Estuary, Portugal

This overview, showing France's Great Dune of Pilat at low tide, is one of countless finely detailed images available in the Microsoft Planetary Computer. This vast, cloud-powered database lets scientists see a whole timeline of crisp satellite captures and environmental data for any location in the world. By analyzing this data, scientists can explore better ways to manage natural resources. For example, a scientist could match shots of Pilat year-over-year with historical wind and tidal data to show how and why the Great Dune has shifted over time.