Sentinel-2 Bands at Level-1 and Level-2: Wavelengths, Uses, and Comparisons

Level-1C vs. Level-2A in one paragraph

Level-1C is radiometrically calibrated top-of-atmosphere reflectance tiled in UTM. Level-2A is surface reflectance derived from Level-1C with atmospheric correction and quality layers, delivered at the same native pixel sizes. Use Level-2A when you want comparability across dates and scenes. Use Level-1C when you need lowest latency or expect the correction to struggle in snow, aerosols, or very low sun. Read more: Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission overview

Sentinel-2 bands at a glance

The table lists typical central wavelengths and native resolutions. Values are representative for Sentinel-2A and 2B.

Band	Center (nm)	Native res	What it is useful for
B1 Coastal aerosol	443	60 m	Aerosol and coastal water corrections, high-altitude haze context
B2 Blue	490	10 m	Bathymetry in clear water, true-color composites, turbidity
B3 Green	560	10 m	Vegetation vigor, green peak, suspended matter
B4 Red	665	10 m	Chlorophyll absorption, indices with NIR
B5 Red-edge 1	705	20 m	Early chlorophyll sensitivity, stress onsets
B6 Red-edge 2	740	20 m	Chlorophyll content and canopy structure
B7 Red-edge 3	783	20 m	Dense canopy discrimination, red-edge indices
B8 NIR wide	842	10 m	NDVI, EVI2, biomass proxies
B8A NIR narrow	865	20 m	BRDF and aerosol handling, fine canopy signals
B9 Water vapor	945	60 m	Water vapor estimation to aid correction
B10 Cirrus	1375	60 m	Thin cirrus detection and masking
B11 SWIR 1	1610	20 m	Moisture, burn severity, cloud screening
B12 SWIR 2	2190	20 m	Mineralogy, residue, moisture gradients

Read more: Sentinel-2 MSI instrument and band set

How Sentinel-2 maps to Landsat 8 and 9

Landsat 8 and 9 OLI/TIRS provide a comparable Blue–Green–Red–NIR–SWIR set, plus a 15 m panchromatic and two thermal bands. Centers below are rounded for readability.

Purpose	Sentinel-2 band (nm, res)	Landsat 8/9 band (nm, res)	Notes
Coastal aerosol	B1 443, 60 m	B1 443, 30 m	Similar coastal and aerosol role
Blue	B2 490, 10 m	B2 ~482, 30 m	Close analogs
Green	B3 560, 10 m	B3 ~562, 30 m	Close analogs
Red	B4 665, 10 m	B4 ~655, 30 m	Indices and mapping
Red-edge	B5 705, 20 m	—	Sentinel-2 advantage
Red-edge	B6 740, 20 m	—	No direct analog
Red-edge	B7 783, 20 m	—	No direct analog
NIR	B8 842, 10 m	B5 ~865, 30 m	Landsat NIR is slightly narrower
NIR narrow	B8A 865, 20 m	—	Useful for BRDF and aerosol handling
Cirrus	B10 1375, 60 m	B9 ~1375, 30 m	Thin cirrus detection
SWIR 1	B11 1610, 20 m	B6 ~1610, 30 m	Moisture, burn
SWIR 2	B12 2190, 20 m	B7 ~2200, 30 m	Moisture, residue
Panchromatic	—	B8 Pan 15 m	Landsat only
Thermal	—	B10, B11 TIRS 100 m	Landsat only

Read more: Landsat band designations and spectral specifications
Read more: USGS overview of Landsat bands

Where PlanetScope and EarthDaily class sensors fit

Many commercial missions trade broader coverage for fewer or differently placed bands. It helps to compare by band families rather than exact nanometers.

PlanetScope SuperDove class sensors typically offer about eight surface reflectance bands at very high spatial resolution. You will commonly see coastal blue, blue, two greens, yellow, red, a single red-edge near 705 nm class, and one NIR near 865 nm class. There is no SWIR or thermal on this class of sensor. For vegetation monitoring NDVI, EVI2, and basic red-edge signals are available. For moisture or burn severity, the lack of SWIR means you lean on indices built from visible and NIR and you should validate thresholds when porting from Sentinel-2.

EarthDaily constellation class systems are designed for agronomy and environmental monitoring with a richer spectral set than typical eight-band constellations. Public descriptions emphasize multiple red-edge bands and shortwave infrared coverage at meter-class resolution. That means many Sentinel-2 style use cases, including water content and residue mapping, can transfer more directly. Exact centers and counts vary by provider documentation, so treat the comparisons here as a band family guide rather than a specification.

What to use when

For vegetation structure and stress, Sentinel-2’s three red-edge bands plus the narrow NIR improve trait sensitivity and make red-edge indices like NDRE practical. For general crop monitoring, the 10 m Blue, Green, Red, and NIR produce stable NDVI, EVI2, and NIRv when you keep processing consistent. For moisture, burn severity, and residue detection, the SWIR pair B11 and B12 carry most of the signal. When porting to Landsat, match band purposes, not exact centers, then validate breakpoints. When moving to PlanetScope class data, expect strong performance for visible and NIR indices and plan around the absence of SWIR. When moving to EarthDaily class data, look for multiple red-edge and SWIR coverage that can preserve more of your Sentinel-2 feature set.

Practical notes on resolutions and consistency

Sentinel-2 10 m bands are B2, B3, B4, and B8. Red-edge and SWIR are 20 m. Aerosol, water vapor, and cirrus are 60 m. If you want per-pixel alignment for indices or composites, resample once, set a fixed grid, and hold the processing level constant across dates. Read more: Sentinel-2 product levels and processing

ClearSKY in practice

All ClearSKY deliveries come at 10 m across the stack so bands line up per pixel. Bands that are natively 20 m or 60 m are provided at 10 m using deep learning superresolution or carefully chosen resampling. If you want indices alongside multispectral data, set the Bandnames field in your composite request to include the needed source bands and normalized-difference indices in one go at no additional cost. Use all to receive the full Sentinel-2 style stack, or specify exactly what you need, for example B8,B4,[B8_B4] to return NIR, Red, and a ready to use NDVI layer in one GeoTIFF. You can request Level-1C style inputs for speed or Level-2A style inputs for comparability and keep that choice consistent across a series.