Earth Matters

In 2016, we published space-based imagery of Iguazú Falls—South America’s famous system of waterfalls, which is near a bend in the Iguazú River between Argentina and Brazil. Spray from the falls reaches so high that it is visible from space. A crew member aboard the International Space Station captured the photograph above on May 24, 2016. The view from the ground is also […]

Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The November 2017 puzzler is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what we are looking at, when the image was acquired, and why the scene is interesting. How to answer. You can use a few words or several paragraphs. You might simply tell us the […]

In this satellite image, the prominent Pinacate Peaks stick out above the sand dune landscape of the Gran Desierto de Altar in Mexico’s Sonoran Province. The peaks are located just south of the Mexico-United States border. The Gran Desierto de Altar is one section of the broader Soronan Desert which covers much of northwestern Mexico […]

This post is republished from the Landsat science team page.  In the giddy, early days following the flawless launch of Landsat 8, as the satellite commissioning was taking place, the calibration team noticed something strange. Light and dark stripes were showing up in images acquired by the satellite’s Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS). Comparing coincident data collected […]

Every month on the Earth Matters blog, we offer a puzzling satellite image.

During the last decade, atmospheric rivers have fueled a new flood of scientific research.

You have probably heard or read that it has been rather smoky out West this year. Dozens of large wildfires have raged through forests in British Columbia, Alberta, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, and other states this fire season. Intense blazes are lofting up so much smoke that huge plumes have been blowing across the country—and even […]

We recently posted several striking pairs of satellite images of Caribbean islands before and after they were hit by Hurricane Irma. The images show lush, green vegetation turning a dark shade of brown. We were curious about what exactly caused the damage and how quickly vegetation might recover, so we checked in with Edmund Tanner, […]

Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The August 2017 puzzler is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what we are looking at, when the image was acquired, and why the scene is interesting. How to answer. Your answer can be a few words or several paragraphs. (Try to […]