Earth
Your home. Our mission.
NASA is an exploration agency, and one of our missions is to know our home. We develop novel tools and techniques for understanding how our planet works — for the benefit of humanity and for insights we need to explore other moons and planets. NASA’s Earth Science Division operates more than 20 satellites in orbit, sponsors hundreds of research programs and studies, and funds opportunities to put data to use for societal needs. We develop new ways to observe the oceans, land cover, ice, atmosphere, and life, and we measure how changes in one drive changes in others over the short and long term. While listening to and collaborating with industry leaders, international partners, academic institutions, and other users of our data, we drive innovations and deliver science to help inform decisions that benefit the nation and the world.
Science in Action for Society
Learn how NASA’s studies of Earth bring benefits to the nation and world.
NASA Flights Map Critical Minerals from Skies Above Western US
NASA’s Brad Doorn Brings Farm Belt Wisdom to Space-Age Agriculture
NASA Helps Build New Federal Sea Level Rise Website
NASA Announces New System to Aid Disaster Response
Treasured Maps
Elevation data collected during a space shuttle mission in 2000 continues to inform science and society in unexpected ways.
OpenET Study Helps Water Managers and Farmers Put NASA Data to Work
Recent News and Articles
Picturing Earth: Astronaut Photography In Focus
For 20 years, astronauts have been shooting photos of Earth from the space station. Like everything the astronauts do, they are trained for this job. And like everything they do, there is purpose and intention behind it.
Sensing the Seas
For more than forty years, NASA has found unique ways to study the surface layers of the ocean from the tropics to the poles. With three new missions since 2020 – PACE, SWOT, and Sentinel 6-Michael Freilich – we are now ushering in a new era of ocean studies.
NASA’s PACE, US-European SWOT Satellites Offer Combined Look at Ocean
NASA Analysis Shows Irreversible Sea Level Rise for Pacific Islands
NASA Project in Puerto Rico Trains Students in Marine Biology
Surfing NASA’s Internet of Animals: Satellites Study Ocean Wildlife
NASA Wants to Identify Phytoplankton Species from Space. Here’s Why.
PACE Scientists Take to the Sea and Air (and Really High Air)
One of NASA’s most expansive and complex field campaigns took place over the month of September. The goal: to check the data that the new PACE satellite is collecting from orbit about Earth’s atmosphere and ocean. To do that, NASA’s PACE-PAX (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem mission Postlaunch Airborne eXperiment) deployed several aircraft and ships from multiple locations in California, including Marina, Santa Barbara, and NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards.
Images of the Day
La Niña Is Here
Cool water has welled up in the tropical Pacific in winter 2024–2025. But it may not stick around for long.
Rainy, Stormy Days in Queensland
A slow-moving storm dropped unusually large amounts of rain on the Australian state in summer 2025.
Nested Calderas of Zavaritskogo
Tucked away on a remote island in the Pacific, the volcano has recently been pinpointed as the likely source of a sunlight-dimming eruption.
A Network of Dried Lakes
Water levels—and the compositions of brines—have varied over time at Searles Lake and the adjacent lakes.
The Allure of Searles Lake Salts
Evaporite minerals from Searles Lake have similarities to minerals found on the asteroid Bennu.
Colorful Tampa Bay
Florida’s largest open-water estuary is known for its shallow, calm, blue-green waters.
Warmer-than-usual weather brought melting and a lack of snowfall to parts of the state in winter 2024–2025.
NASA, NOAA 2024 Ozone Hole Update
This year, the ozone hole over Antarctica reached its annual maximum extent on September 28th, 2024, with an area of 8.5 million square miles (22.4 square million kilometers.) The hole, which is actually a region of depleted ozone, was the 20th smallest since scientists began recording the ozone hole in 1979. The average size of the ozone hole between September and October this year was the 7th-smallest since the Montreal Protocol began to take effect.
Earth Information Center
For more than 50 years, NASA satellites have provided data on Earth's land, water, air, temperature, and climate. NASA's Earth Information Center allows visitors to see how our planet is changing in six key areas: sea level rise and coastal impacts, health and air quality, wildfires, greenhouse gases, sustainable energy, and agriculture.
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