TERRA Lab

Try what TERRA is learning to read, before it is finished.

Each experiment tests one question about land and opens here unfinished, with what is missing written beside it. The ones that hold up move into every reading, as the property flight did on 30 September 2026.

10 open · 1 in the workshop · 1 in every reading

Newest: The air over the land, 9 October 2026 →

Open now

Unfinished, and open to anyone. Each one says what is still missing.

The air over Tabanan, Bali, in TERRA Lab: fine particles highest through the night and at dawn while the air is shallow, cleanest in the afternoon.

NewestStarted

The air over the land

Read the air over any place on Earth, now: how fine smoke and dust move through its day, how often it crossed the WHO line in the last three months, what the public sensors nearby read, and the cleanest hours to open the house in the days ahead. In rice country near Tabanan, Bali, the air at dawn is about 85 m deep and by mid afternoon more than ten times deeper, and the smoke follows it.

The question

Can TERRA read the air over any land on demand, clearly enough for an owner to know which hours to keep the windows shut?

Where it goes

The air read into every land reading, beside the water and the ground.

What is not finished (3)
  • The hour by hour air is read for the region, a few kilometres across. A fire next door shows only on a sensor close by.
  • Fine particles only. Ozone, gases and pollen are not read yet.
  • It reads a point, not yet the parcel you draw, and it is not yet part of a land reading.
A map of Nicaragua and Costa Rica: a lowland in Guanacaste marked in gold, and the plain near León, Nicaragua, where its 2050 climate is found today, shaded in sand.

Started

Its climate in 2050

Every land's climate is moving. For four sample lands in Costa Rica, Panama and Brazil, TERRA finds the places that already have the climate each should expect around 2050, how close each comes, and the nearest one to go and stand in. For the ridge in Monteverde, it lies 3 km away and 479 m lower.

The question

Can TERRA find a place whose climate today is the one this land should expect by 2050, so its owner can go and stand in it?

What is not finished (3)
  • Four sample lands so far. It does not yet run on a parcel you draw.
  • One high-emissions future, temperature and rain only. Soil, wind and day length do not travel with the climate.
  • A coarse grid. Each match is an area, not a single spot.
The same land in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, from space in 1985 and in 2025: pale dry ground on the left, green fields on the right, the parcel outlined in gold.

Started

Forty years back

One picture from space for every dry season since the 1980s, on three sample lands. Move through the years or set two side by side, and see how much of the land stayed green before it came to you. On the Guanacaste land, 4% held green through the 1985 dry season and 66% through 2025.

The question

Can a parcel's record from space, back to the 1980s, show an heir what the land was before it came to them?

What is not finished (3)
  • Dry-season pictures only, and a wet year reads greener than a dry one.
  • It shows fields, forest and towns, not single trees or buildings.
  • Some years were too cloudy or never photographed, and are marked not seen clearly.
Pasture, tree lines and the town of Pedasí in Panama from above, with three numbered marks on the pasture and every matching field lit in green inside the gold outline of the land.

Started

Teach it your land

Mark up to three spots you know well on a sample land. Every part of it whose ground looks and behaves the same through the year lights up, with the hectares that match and the patches they fall in. Marks on the pasture near Pedasí, Panama, light 63 ha of pasture and none of the town.

The question

If an owner marks three spots they know well, can TERRA find every other spot like them on the same land?

What is not finished (3)
  • One year of ground, 2025. A field cleared or planted since then still reads as it was.
  • A single tree, a narrow path or a fence line is too small to mark.
  • Three sample lands so far. It does not yet run on a parcel you draw.
Rain gathered into streams around a ridge in Monteverde, Costa Rica, the land outlined in gold, with the share of its rain that leaves at each edge.

Started

Where the rain goes

Rain falls on a parcel and runs where the ground sends it. Watch the streams form, tap anywhere to follow one drop, and see how much of the land's rain leaves each way and how much arrives from uphill. Three sample lands: a ridge in Monteverde, flat lowland in Guanacaste and low hills near Pedasí, Panama.

The question

Can watching rain cross a parcel show its owner where the water leaves, and how much of the neighbours' rain it carries?

What is not finished (2)
  • Three sample lands so far. It does not yet run on a parcel you draw.
  • It follows the shape of the ground only. Roads, pipes and culverts change where water really goes.
A walker on the west slope of a ridge in Monteverde, Costa Rica, the land outlined in gold, beside what the reading found there: a water line ahead and downhill.

Started

Where you stand

Walk a sample land and the reading tells you what it found on the spot you stand on: the ground under your feet, the nearest water line and which way it lies, the boundary, and where the rain goes from there. Drag the walker or let it cross the land. On one of the three lands, your phone's position works too.

The question

On a walk with the TERRA app, can the reading show what it found right where you are: the water line ahead, the steep ground, the boundary?

What is not finished (3)
  • Three sample lands so far. It does not yet run on a parcel you draw.
  • A phone's position drifts by 5 to 25 m, more under trees. A position looser than 25 m is set aside, and the page says so.
  • The compass and the tick are not yet tried on a phone in the field.
A ridge in Monteverde, Costa Rica, in early light with the land outlined in gold, a small map of where its birds were recorded, and the bird now singing named.

Started

The land at dawn

Twelve birds recorded within 10 km of a ridge in Monteverde, Costa Rica, played as one morning. Each comes in on its own, lights up as it sings, and is credited to the person who recorded it. Where too few open recordings exist, the page says the land is silent on the record.

The question

Can the birds recorded around a parcel be heard as its morning, so an owner listens to the land before the first visit?

What is not finished (3)
  • Assembled from separate recordings made on different days, not one real morning.
  • Birds only, and only Monteverde has enough open recordings for a chorus.
  • Sample lands only. It does not yet run on a parcel you draw.
The Nicoya Peninsula in TERRA Lab, every 100-metre square shaded by how green it was in September 2026, beside what the dry season did to it.

Started

Nicoya, read whole

The whole Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, 518,178 hectares, read in 100-metre squares, month by month. Ask the land questions in plain words, find ground like a place you know, follow the water, see the terrain and a place's months in 3D, draw a place and compare two.

The question

Can TERRA read a whole region at once and answer plain questions about any part of it?

Where it goes

Every hectare on Earth, read the same way. Nicoya is the first 518,178.

What is not finished (3)
  • Older years are still being read, newest first. The record reaches further back each night, toward 2017.
  • Canopy height is missing.
  • It reads in 100-metre squares, not at the scale of a single parcel.
The opening of TERRA's Amazon page in the Lab, beside a sample reading of a parcel in Pará, Brazil.

Started

The Amazon

Readings across the Amazon basin that know collective and indigenous lands, protected areas, Brazil's yearly clearing record and what has happened to the forest since 1986. Draw a boundary anywhere in the Amazon and read it.

The question

Can a reading in the Amazon say whether a parcel sits on collective or indigenous land or inside a protected area, and what has been cleared there year by year?

What is not finished (2)
  • Collective and indigenous lands are read in Brazil and Colombia only. In Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and the Guianas the reading says the record is silent.
  • The yearly clearing record is Brazil's. Elsewhere the forest record runs from 1990.
A forest's record as a block of time, with a half-hectare opening marked between October 2024 and January 2025.

Started

The land's rhythm

A parcel's whole satellite record, read as its seasons, its changes and its recoveries. An 85-second film, then three places to open: a forest in Pará, Brazil, watered fields in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, and a cloud forest in Monteverde, Costa Rica.

The question

Can a parcel's record show its seasons clearly enough that a change stands out against them?

What is not finished (1)
  • Three places so far. It does not yet run on a parcel you draw.

In the workshop

Being built. Not public yet.

Walk the land

A painted, first-person walk across a parcel, made from its own terrain.

Can you walk a parcel on screen before you walk it on foot?

Next questions

Not started. Tap the ones you want: the count is read when the next one is chosen.

  1. Where the sea will reach

    On a parcel by the coast, can TERRA show which ground the sea is expected to reach by 2050 and by 2100, and which stays dry?

  2. What the ground has done

    Can every earthquake, fire and flood recorded near a parcel since 2000 be laid out as one timeline, so a buyer sees the land's history before signing?

  3. A week of listening

    If a small recorder sits on the land for seven nights, can TERRA tell its owner which birds, frogs and insects call there?

Ask the Lab

What should TERRA learn to read about land next? Write the question as you would ask it of your own land. A question asked often joins the list above.

How the email is kept

Graduated

Started here. Now part of every reading.

The property flight

A flight over the land you drew. It started in the Lab, and since 30 September 2026 every reading has one.

Does seeing a parcel from the air help someone understand it before they visit?

In every reading since

A reading of your own land is free.