It took Gavin McMorrow a mere 30 minutes to solve our February puzzler. As he pointed out, the rectangular patterns were cleared forest areas in Argentina’s Salta province. (Learn more about the area in our February 27, 2016, Image of the Day). McMorrow even recognized this was an Operational Land Imager (OLI) image from Landsat […]
Our March 17, 2016, Image of the Day offered a satellite perspective on how sand mining has changed the coastline of Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China. The photographs below provide a view of sand mining from the ground. James Burnham, an ecologist with the University of Wisconsin and the International Crane Foundation, […]
Fourteen years ago, a rocket launched a pair of satellites known as the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia. Though just 487 kilograms (1,074 pounds) each, the satellites have produced out-sized scientific advances. As we noted in 2012, few hydrologists believed the satellites would be able to detect—no less […]
On this day five years ago, the largest earthquake in modern Japanese history shook the mainland region of Tohoku. The tsunami that followed was devastating. Nearly 16,000 people were killed, and more than 127,000 buildings completely collapsed. The wave triggered power outages, explosions, and reactor meltdowns at a nuclear plant in Fukushima. What is perhaps […]
Round 2 is open for voting. How is your bracket?
On March 1, 2016, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly returned to Earth after spending 340 days living continuously in space. That’s a record. No other American astronaut has completed a longer mission or spent more cumulative days in space. A prolific and talented photographer, Kelly posted hundreds and hundreds of photographs of the Earth below to social media during […]
Here in the U.S., it’s election season. Don’t forget to vote.
While I was in San Francisco in the fall of 2015, I headed across the Golden Gate Bridge to take a tour of The Marine Mammal Center, a nonprofit veterinary research hospital in Sausalito, California. I had heard that a blob of unusually warm water off the Pacific coast had taken a toll on marine […]
Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The February 2016 puzzler is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what part of the world we are looking at, when the image was acquired, what the image shows, and why the scene is interesting. How to answer. Your answer can be […]
Earth Matters occasionally publishes interviews with NASA earth scientists from around the agency. Here we feature Lazaros Oreopoulos, chief of the Climate and Radiation Laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Center. Can you describe your job? I have three roles. For the last two-and-a-half years, I’ve been the chief of the Climate and Radiation Lab, so that makes me […]
