Search the Earth Observatory
You may search using a text query below, select the topics you wish to browse on the left, or use the two together to refine your search.
All Earth Observatory Topics

After days of torrential rain, the river rose to record-breaking levels in parts of Nepal and India.

Surrounded by wetlands, Manitoba's northernmost farmland near The Pas turns from green to brown over the 2026 growing season.

Hurricanes Polo and Nolo sent destructive effects ashore amid an active season in the northeastern and central Pacific.

Scientists captured rare observations of an ephemeral pileus cloud hovering over a smoke-infused cloud that rose above a wildfire in Montana.

A new map of the terrain beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet links hundreds of valleys that previous maps missed or left fragmented.

Several ingredients came together off the Pacific coast of Mexico to generate one of the strongest storms the eastern Pacific basin has ever seen.

A low-lying cloud layer brought autumn ambience to western Washington and Oregon, while mountainous areas near the coast remained above the pall.

Carpets of wildflowers burst from arid, ochre-colored land in Western Australia following winter rains.

While the sea ice melt season has lengthened dramatically in most of the satellite era, the trend unexpectedly stabilized around 2010.

Snow drought and unusually warm temperatures in the Colorado Basin in 2026 helped drive down reservoir water storage in the U.S. West.

Temperature records toppled across the central and southern U.S. as the autumnal equinox approached.

An amateur astronomer scouting online satellite maps for campsites in Quebec found an impact crater instead.

Reds, yellows, and oranges are already sweeping across tundra landscapes in Nunavut.

Mexico’s second-largest metropolitan area borders on folded rock layers of the Sierra Madre Oriental.

At a time of year when dust storm activity winds down, a plume of dust blanketed parts of the West African nation and its neighbors.

A powerful eruption from the Indonesian volcano lofted ash into the atmosphere, disrupting thousands of flights and degrading air quality.

Layers of sedimentary rock that jut from the Soledad Basin at surprising angles have long enthralled television and film producers, including the team behind Star Trek.

With austral winter nearing its end, clouds cleared for a satellite view of volcanic activity in the remote South Atlantic.

The Pacific was buzzing with storms while the Atlantic was notably quiet.

With Indonesia gripped by drought, fires are smoldering on the surface and underground.

Rainfall deficits and high temperatures have created unusually dry conditions and have spurred water shortages on much of the tropical archipelago.

In summer 2026, a substantial iceberg calved from Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland and swiftly drifted into Nares Strait, colliding with an island along the way.

One narrowing icefall remains the linchpin for the Alpine glacier—and it may not be long for this world.

The meandering Congaree River sustains towering forest ecosystems and fashions oxbow lakes as it shifts across its floodplain.

Back-to-back winter storms in August 2026 brought snowfall to northern Chile, from the Andes to near the Pacific coast.

Experts are analyzing decades of images from Landsat satellites for clues about how the iconic birds have responded to sea ice disruptions in the past.

These glacial landforms jut into northern Lake Huron, surrounded by sheltered channels and coves frequented by fish and small watercraft.

The drying of the massive lake exposed playas that became the setting for feats of engineering and technological ingenuity, as well as epic tales of exploration and desperation.

A series of heat waves in 2026 is breaking records and taking a toll in Europe.

A large iceberg, observed in summer 2026, had drifted more than 1,000 kilometers south from the northeastern Greenland bay where it likely originated.

Drought in the Rio Grande basin contributed to New Mexico’s largest reservoir dwindling to its lowest level in decades.

The powerful storm delivered extreme rainfall and damaging winds to the state, passing the Island of Hawaiʻi as a category 1 hurricane.

NASA aircraft are sampling smoke lofted high into the atmosphere by one of the most formidable cloud types in the sky—towering, smoke-infused pyrocumulonimbus.

The Moon slid between the Sun and Earth to produce a stunning celestial show visible from Spain in August 2026.

From the International Space Station, astronauts photographed Mount Hood and Mount Rainier as wildfire smoke spread across the Pacific Northwest in summer 2026.

Western Iceland and northern Spain are among the few Northern Hemisphere locations experiencing a total solar eclipse on August 12, 2026.

Tidal and seasonal shifts leave their mark on this crescent-shaped, productive bay in Western Australia's Kimberley region.

Satellite measurements of chlorophyll at the sea surface signal shifts in the ocean’s nutrient supplies in mid-2026.

New animations from NASA's PREFIRE mission reveal two years of seasonal temperature swings at the Arctic and Antarctic.

The ocean’s ebbs and flows reveal dynamic tidal flats and a well-traveled shipping route along the coast of Germany.

The coastal dune field in Brazil looks like a desert but fills with freshwater lagoons every year.

Wildland fires in early August 2026 pushed air quality to unhealthy levels, destroyed hundreds of structures, and triggered mandatory evacuations in Spokane.

The expanse of glacial ice on Canada’s Baffin Island lost its snow cover quickly and early in summer 2026, revealing a network of melt features.

Raging wildfires disrupted summer in Spain and France amid sweltering heat waves and prolonged drought.

Stewart Island/Rakiura, New Zealand’s third-largest island, is known for its vibrant birdlife, unique forests, wilderness beaches, and views of the night sky.

Seaweed composing the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt hit near-record levels in June 2026, with the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of America both reaching all-time highs.

Lightning storms have ignited dozens of fires in central and eastern Oregon.

The color of Adélie penguin droppings reveals what the birds are eating, offering scientists a way to track how sea ice conditions influence their diet.

Utah’s new solar power and battery storage facility is among the largest in the region.
Get the Earth Observatory in your Inbox
Subscribe to our newsletters
We will never share your email address.




