A spy satellite image showing signs of marmot burrows (small white dots in the upper right) By Stephenie LivingstonWhen the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit in 1957, the United States responded with its own spy satellites.
The espionage program, known as Corona, sought to locate Soviet missile sites, but its Google Earth–like photography captured something unintended: snapshots of animals and their habitats frozen in time.
Now, by comparing these images with modern data, scientists have found a way to track the decline of biodiversity in regions that lack historic records.The researchers tested the approach on bobak marmot (Marmota bobak) populations in the grassland region of northern Kazakhstan.