Earth Matters

This photo of Skylab was taken by the astronauts of Skylab-2 as they left the space station and departed for Earth on June 22, 1973. More photos from all three Skylab missions are archived on NASA’s Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. To look through the rest of the Skylab collection, select Find Photos > […]

Not all of NASA’s rovers are headed to Mars. A new Earth science rover nicknamed GROVER started roaming Greenland’s ice sheet this week. The autonomous, solar-operated robot carries a ground-penetrating radar that will be used to examine how snow is accumulating on the Greenland ice pack. Its findings could help scientists understand how the massive […]

Japan’s MTSAT-2 (also known as Himawari-7) collected these images of today’s annular solar eclipse from geostationary orbit. The satellite (similar to the United State’s GOES satellites), observed the moon’s shadow as it passed over Australia & the Pacific Ocean. The image sequence begins at 21:32 UTC, with an additional image each hour until 02:32 UTC. […]

Thanks to everybody who offered answers to our five puzzlers last week. Congratulations to Christina Stiefel for solving Puzzler #5, Alan Wessman for solving Puzzler #3, and Angie Connelly for solving Puzzler #2! Honorable mention to Marcus Scherer for nearly solving Puzzler #1. Puzzler #1 showed undisturbed rainforest canopy in Brazil in part of Pará […]

Each month, Earth Observatory offers up a puzzling satellite image here on Earth Matters. In celebration of Earth Month 2013, we’re upping the ante. We are going to release a new puzzler image every day this week.  The fifth image is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what part […]

Each month, Earth Observatory offers up a puzzling satellite image here on Earth Matters. In celebration of Earth Month 2013, we’re upping the ante. We are going to release a new puzzler image every day this week.  The fourth image is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what part […]

Each month, Earth Observatory offers up a puzzling satellite image here on Earth Matters. In celebration of Earth Month 2013, we’re upping the ante. We are going to release a new puzzler image every day this week.  The third image is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what part […]

Each month, Earth Observatory offers up a puzzling satellite image here on Earth Matters. In celebration of Earth Month 2013, we’re upping the ante. We are going to release a new puzzler image every day this week.  The second image is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what part […]

Each month, Earth Observatory offers up a puzzling satellite image here on Earth Matters. In celebration of Earth Month 2013, we’re upping the ante. We are going to release a new puzzler image every day this week.  The first image is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what part […]