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Life on Earth

From forests to elk to microscopic phytoplankton, every living thing plays a role in shaping our planet. NASA studies life on Earth from above, tracking ecosystems and observing changes in the diversity of plants and animals.
Building knowledge of our planet’s living systems allows us to steward our resources and protect vital landscapes, while gaining insights that can guide the search for life beyond our world.

The sum of Earth's plants, on land and in the ocean, changes slightly from year to year as weather patterns shift.

Where Does NASA Fit?

For decades, NASA satellites have been collecting data that gives scientists an understanding of how life on Earth changes over months, seasons, and years. This view from space, combined with measurements taken on the ground, helps scientists understand life cycles at every level – from tiny organisms to entire ecosystems. Today's NASA satellites and aircraft carry advanced instruments that reveal more detail about life on Earth than ever before. They track changes in crops, land cover, rivers and lakes, forests, the ocean, and even in extreme environments such as volcanoes and ice sheets, giving us a complete picture of our living, changing planet.

A Living Planet
The ICESat-2 Mission
The PACE Mission
How NASA Helps
Life on Earth News
Current Research
Show Me the Data
Additional Information

A Living Planet

Earth hosts a stunning variety of life. NASA’s research has shown that in order for a planet to support life as we know it, three pillars are needed: liquid water, energy, and nutrients. Earth has just the right amount of all three. Together, tiny microbes and insects, towering trees, and elephants represent a range of life that forms the foundations of healthy ecosystems. As species interact with each other and their environments, they create complex webs of relationships that sustain all life on Earth, including our own.

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Credit: Jeremy Cohen, Penn State University.

NASA Helps Study One of the World’s Most Diverse Ecosystems

NASA satellite and airborne tools aid an international team studying biodiversity on the land and in the water around South Africa.

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Featured story

A small tree in the foreground with green and orange fields and a mountain in the background.

Featured Mission: ICESat-2

The Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat-2) measures the height of Earth's ice and land surfaces, one laser pulse at a time, 10,000 laser pulses a second. It carries a photon-counting laser altimeter that allows scientists to study tree canopies, ice sheets, and more – all in three-dimensional detail.

ICESat-2 Mission Home
5 min read

NASA Approves Continuation of ICESat-2 After 3+ Years of Big Results

Article3 years ago
4 min read

Tundra Vegetation to Grow Taller, Greener Through 2100, NASA Study Finds

Article11 months ago

Featured Mission: PACE

The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem’s primary sensor, the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), is a highly advanced optical spectrometer that measures properties of light over portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. It detects more than 200 wavelengths of light, enabling scientists to track and monitor the rapidly changing atmosphere and ocean, including cloud formation, aerosol movement, and differences in microscopic ocean life over time.

PACE Mission Home
Centered in the image is a disorganized patch of light blue and green color in the dark surrounding ocean. Some slight swirling within the colorful area is visible, thin windswept clouds are scattered primarily in the lower left and the mid and upper right. on the right side of the image is a bit of landmass, France, that seems to be largely green, but polka dotted with yellows throughout.

PACE Scientists Take to the Sea and Air (and Really High Air)

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Photo of red tide along florida coast

An Ocean in Bloom

PACE will help identify harmful algal blooms around the world, informing communities ranging from local fishermen to large corporations about what is occurring in their local waters.

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Landsat satellite image of the sands and seaweed in the Bahamas.

The Saga of Sargassum

The name of the Sargasso Sea stems from the Portuguese word for "small grapes." These small, floating, grape-like plants can cause big problems.

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How NASA Helps

  • NASA Joins Jane Goodall to Conserve Chimpanzee Habitats

    The Jane Goodall Institute uses data from Landsat and other satellites to empower local communities to drive conservation on their own land by creating habitat suitability maps for chimpanzees.

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    Jane Goodall sits with arms over knees next to a group of chimps.
    The Jane Goodall Institute uses satellite data, including Landsat, to empower local communities to drive chimpanzee habitat conservation.
    NASA/Jane Goodall Institute

  • NASA Data Helps Beavers Build Back Streams

    Beavers, often called "nature's engineers," get help from NASA to mitigate drought and wildfires.

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    A couple beavers heads and rails peak out of rippling water with grass in the foreground and along the right.
    A beaver family nibbles on aspen branches just up Logan Canyon from Utah State University, in Spawn Creek, Utah.
    Sarah Koenigsberg

  • Finding Space for Tigers

    Tigers are just one of the vulnerable big mammals whose habitats NASA is helping track from space.

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    Two orange and black-striped tigers rest on their bellies in snow and look directly at the camera.
    NASA satellites are helping track tiger habitat, offering new insights for conservation as these predators face the consequences of habitat loss.
    Wildlife Conservation Society / Dale Miquelle

Life on Earth News

A plastic bag with a green device that looks similar to a floppy disk is attached to a tree branch with a zip tie. There is a label on the bag that says Science Experiment in Progress and instructions not to move the device.

Soundscapes to Landscapes: Monitoring Animal Biodiversity from Space Using Citizen Scientists

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Forest data from Landsat satellites

Assessing the Nature of the U.S.

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5 min read

A Global Biodiversity Crisis: How NASA Satellites Help Track Changes to Life on Earth

Article2 years ago

Animals as Earth System Observers

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Show Me the Data

View of Earth from space focused on the Americas, showing swirling ocean currents across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in white against a blue ocean background, highlighting global ocean circulation patterns.

Explore Biosphere Data Collection via Pathfinder

Find NASA's data on the biosphere, including trainings, articles, webinars, additional related topics, and more.

View of Earth from space focused on the Americas, showing swirling ocean currents across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in white against a blue ocean background, highlighting global ocean circulation patterns.

Explore Terrestrial Hydrosphere Data Collection via Pathfinder

Find NASA's data on the terrestrial hydrosphere, including trainings, articles, webinars, additional related topics, and more.

Current Research

NASA’s Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Focus Area

NASA supports research that investigates global biogeochemical cycles and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Scientists also study global environmental change and the implications for Earth’s climate, productivity, and natural resources.

A group of eight people wearing red and black cold-weather gear with neon yellow hoods are seated in a black inflatable boat in a polar environment. They are smiling and holding scientific equipment, including a plankton net, a mug, and an orange device. Snow-covered mountains and an icy ocean surround them under an overcast sky.

Phytoplankton May Be Abundant Under Antarctic Sea Ice, Study Suggests

A decade ago, scientists on a NASA-sponsored ocean expedition found massive populations of phytoplankton blooms beneath sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Now scientists using underwater instruments and a NASA satellite have found evidence of potentially significant blooms beneath the sea ice encircling Antarctica.

Satellite view of the Gulf of Oman and surrounding land. The land is all a shade of brown, ranging from reddish, to khaki to a non-descript light brown. The water of the gulf of oman is completely green in this image, at it's most dense it is a forest green color. To the northwest the Persian Gulf waters that feed the Gulf of Oman start to show a light shade of greening near the Strait of Hormuz. As the Gulf of Oman opens up into the Indian Ocean the shade of green lightens and disperses into vibrant blue waters in a series of eddies. Greening can also be seen along much of the included coastline away from the gulf as well. Some light cirrus clouds can be seen with the densest surrounding the Persian Gulf in the top left corner.

Complex Beauty in the Gulf of Oman

When conditions are right, phytoplankton populations may bloom explosively. PACE’s Ocean Color instrument reveals a Gulf of Oman phytoplankton bloom in stunning detail by detecting changes in light over different wavelengths. 

A satellite image of Namibia with a color gradient overlay corresponding to vegetation coverage. Vegetation coverage ranges from dark brown to dark green with white being the average between them. The Etosha Pan, bottom right, and the Natukanaoaka Pan, center left, are the two biggest areas in the brown shade. The image is primarily a shade of green to white with scattered brown spots. The Ekuma river enters the image at the top center, and does also carry some brown coloration where the water covers the land.

Tracking Elephants Across Namibia

In a new study, researchers used a combination of GPS tracking data and satellite imagery to map elephant movement throughout the landscape in northwestern Namibia.

Fire on a mountain

NASA Data on Plant ‘Sweating' Could Help Predict Wildfire Severity

Scientists use data from the ECOSTRESS instrument aboard the International Space Station to better understand why some parts of a wildfire burn more intensely than others.

Additional Information

North American vegetation

NASA's Biological Diversity and Ecological Conservation Program

The program supports basic research that advances the understanding of how and why biological diversity is changing.

Phytoplankton blooms in the Barents Sea off the coast of Norway and Russia, shown in natural color from NASA's Aqua satellite on July 10, 2014. Without sampling the water directly it's impossible to know the type of phytoplankton, but past analyses suggest that the green bloom is diatoms and the white bloom is coccolithophores. Credit: NASA's Earth Observatory. View larger image.

NASA's Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program

The program focuses on describing, understanding, and predicting the biological, ecological, and biogeochemical regimes of the upper ocean, as determined by observation of aquatic optical properties using remote sensing data, including those from space, aircraft, and other suborbital platforms.

Green background with swirls of brown indicating the river location.

NASA's Terrestrial Ecology Program

The program’s research addresses Earth's carbon cycle and ecosystems using space-based observations. The focus is on land-based ecosystems, changes in their structure and functioning, and their roles in supporting human life and maintaining planet Earth's habitability.

Indigenous people are protecting carbon-rich forests in South America, and satellites are helping.

NASA’s Land-Cover and Land-Use Change Program

The program uses remote sensing data from satellites and airborne campaigns to improve our understanding of how humans affect and interact with the terrestrial environment.