Earth Observatory Image of the Day

NASA's view of the Earth from the Earth Observatory.

The area of depleted ozone over the Antarctic ranked the seventh smallest since recovery began in 1992.
A map of Ozone coverage over shows the region over Antarctica in a light yellow to orange and a light red indicative of an Ozone hole.
Bald cypress and other trees are becoming pale, leafless snags as storms, droughts, and sea level rise kill off coastal...
A peninsula of land is shown, oriented with water at the top and along both sides of the image, shows green vegetation surrounded by dark water that becomes more blue green in the lower right. Two bridges connect this land to other areas at Manns Harbor at the top right and on the top left of the peninsula East Lake. A ghost forest runs down the coast from Manns Harbor to Stumpy Point.
Ash billowed from the stratovolcano, which has been active since 2005.
numerous small cumulous clouds can be seen approaching the peak of Popocatépetl from the lower left of the image. At the peak smoke, grayer in color compared to the white clouds, streams conically to the top right of the image.
A dam along the Sinnamary River created this artificial lake in northern French Guiana.
Dark water branch out into bright green landscape
The volcano’s central peak, an island within an island, stands above a reflective, water-filled caldera. View the full story
Krenitsyna peak features in the lower right of the image surrounded by Kol’tsevoye Lake surrounded by the cliffs of a caldera. The land gradually slopes down from the peak of the caldera, covered in dark green foliage before meeting the Pacific Ocean along the left side of the image
Visible atmospheric phenomena revealed springtime winds roaring over Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier.
A dark pool of sea water interrupts a field of ice on the Pine Island Glacier. Sea smoke can be seen as vapor clouds streaming over the image.
Autumn color still clung to northern parts of the state in late October 2024. View the full story
The image features the states of Michigan and surrounding lakes. Detroit is labeled in the lower right with Traverse City and Petoskey labeled in the top left on the coast of Lake Michigan. The northern region of the state near those two cities are a rich reddish brown color
Alpine glaciers around the world were advancing as recently as 1990. Now they’re melting fast. View the full story
The Image features a satellite view of Mount Baker and the Easton Glacier. The surrounding landscape includes some bare tan colored rock on the immediate edges of the white snowfields before giving way to deep green foliage. The image itself scrolls away to a more current version of the same region and shows significantly less snow and ice coverage, and more bare rock in it's place.
The city in southeastern New Mexico received four times more rainfall in a day than it usually receives in a...
an image of empty green tan land with a river in the center that is blue-green in color
A potent storm brought heavy rain and gusty winds to southwestern Canada and the U.S. state of Washington in October...
The West Coast of the U.S. and Canada are shown with an arc of dense cloud cover extending from the northern Pacific and obfuscating Seattle and Vancouver
Scientists are studying the rare filling of Sebkha el Melah for clues about past—and possibly future—greening of the Sahara Desert.
A washed out basin of gray land is surrounded by light beige yellow sand. The basin is about one third filled with green water labeled Sebka el Mehah.
Milton persisted as a potent hurricane-strength storm as it crossed over the Gulf of Mexico, Florida, and into the western...
A lightning-ignited blaze billowed smoke into the towns and valleys near Jackson. View the full story
smoke streams from and obscures brown colored mountainous land in the center of the image.
The storm rapidly intensified to Category 5 strength over warm gulf waters. View the full story
The image of the gulf coast, land in gray and ocean with a temperature gradient overlay with current cloud coverage shows Hurricane Milton. The ocean temperatures overlay shows all Gulf of Mexico waters in a shade of red. The range of color on the warm side of the spectrum ranges from pale yellow at 21 degrees C to a dark, near black shade of red, at 32 degrees C or more.
The active 2024 hurricane season comes to a head with several simultaneous hurricanes—an unusual sight for October. View the full...
This image shows the Earth from a distance centering on the Atlantic Ocean near Florida. Three storms are visible - Milton, Kirk, and Leslie. Milton is in the Gulf of Mexico, Kirk in the more northern Atlantic, and Leslie nearer the coast of Africa.
Larch-filled forests turned from green to gold around Lake Hövsgöl in September 2024. View the full story
Two images of the same lake side by side. The water is a dark blue in both images. The land on the left is covered in green foliage, whereas it is largely brown on the right and there is snow covered peaks along the left side of the lake.
Torrential rains from Hurricane Helene swamped communities in the mountainous western part of the state. View the full story
Amid sporadic cloud coverage there are three locations visible and zoomed in on with a pop-out bubble. They are Asheville, center left, shown with a brown swath interrupting the city streets. In the upper center the Burnett Reservoir shows the waters being a very murky brown. Black Mountain, center right, shows similar brown soil covers human settlement areas.
An astronaut photographed the atmospheric phenomenon, associated with lightning, during a stormy night over North America. View the full story
A view of the United States at night from the international space station shows equipment from the ISS in the foreground. On Earth a lightning storm brightly illuminates clouds in spots and city lights are visible in clear regions. Above a bright cluster of clouds a purple spot, labeled a sprite, is visible in higher atmosphere.
The heavy rains, high winds, and storm surge that devastated land also left a mark on the ocean. View the...
Satellite image of Florida with thin clouds interspersed over the land. The Cities of Pensacola, Perry and Tampa are marked along the Gulf Coast. The nearby Gulf Coast waters appear turquoise as far from the coastline as about half the width of Florida.
Once the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane, the typhoon weakened and stalled off the island’s southwest coast. View the...
Swirling white clouds center off the coast of China (top left) and Taiwan (near top center). Much of Taiwan has entered the top right corner of the storm and is the nearest landmass to the eye. The Philippines (lower center) are partially covered by the thinner outer edge clouds of the Typhoon.
The state faced widespread power outages after winds from Hurricane Helene snapped trees, tore off roofs, and toppled power lines....
The night satellite image of the greater Augusta area shows gray dark city streets across most of the image with small pockets of orange to purple coloration that indicate lighting.
The major storm brought heavy precipitation and destructive flooding to coastal Florida and southeastern states. View the full story
A map of the southeast United States in grayscale with a rainfall color scale overlay. The range of colors where rainfall was found spans light blue to pale yellow at 15 centimeters onto red, the darkest shade matching 30 centimeters or more. Much of the densest rainfall is off of the Florida coastline and immediately in the initial landfall region. The colors lighten over Georgia with a secondary red patch spanning from the southwest border of North Carolina into southern West Virginia.
Reflected sunlight highlights the water’s surface and flooded zones near Gee’s Bend. View the full story
The meandering Alabama river spans the image in a bright champagne color contrasts from the dark surrounding vegetation. There is a Lock and Dam along the leftmost section of the river. Dannelly Reservoir is just above the dam. The river loops down and at the bottom center of the image Gee's Bend, just below the town of Boykin, shows water extending into nearby fields. As the river bends back up Chilatchee creek is labelled and flooded.
A late-season storm covered the mountainous country and nearby provinces of South Africa in a blanket of white. View the...
Lesotho appears to be largely overlayed with vibrant blue color, indicative of snow. The snow extends into South Africa as well, though less dense than shown in Lesotho. The ocean appears in the lower right corner, appearing nearly black, and the city of Durban on the coastline is included in the snow cover. The city of Bloemfontein is marked on the left of the image.
The storm, which drenched coastal British Columbia and southeastern Alaska, may be among the region’s most intense in the past...
The Northern West Coast of the United States, up to Alaska are pictured. The cities of Bella Bella, Yakutat and Anchorage are labeled and a line of dense cloud cover extends across out into the Pacific Ocean and covers the coastline in clouds.
An active atmosphere at northern latitudes contributed to the highest monthly Arctic ozone concentrations measured in the satellite era. View...
Two maps of earth from the arctic polar with an overlay color gradient indicating amount of O-zone. The gradient ranges from red to pale yellow, which up to blue. Red would be an "Ozone hole" and pale yellow an acceptable level and dark blue would be high quantities. The left image is labeled as March 2020 and the right from March 2024. The image on the left shows a pale yellow over the arctic, surrounded by medium blue shade and pale yellow around the equator. The image on the right shows the arctic in a dark blue that becomes gradually lighter before reaching pale yellow at the equator.
A meandering river birthed an oxbow lake that happens to be shaped like the first letter of the English alphabet....
The image is primarily partitioned crop fields. In the center of the image is an Oxbow lake, and the Kura River meanders along the top of the image and down to the right. In the top center left the Varvara Reservoir, darkens the foliage above the river. On the opposite side of the river is the town of Varvara. An aquaculture facility is fed by and sits to the right of the Varvara Reservoir. On the right side of the image a point bar is created where the river meanders away from the side of the land.
Torrential rain from a stalled storm system caused flooding in countries such as Poland and Slovakia. View the full story
The Oder River moves through a verdant green Poland. The city of Wrocław sits on the banks of the river in the upper left corner. Opole on one of the branches in the lower right. The river stretches diagonally across the image between the two cities and is unusually wide, creating many islands of what is usually small meanders.
Water inundates the marshes along Delaware Bay, which provide protection against flooding and erosion, as well as habitat for migrating...
Vibrant green land borders both sides of the dark blue Delaware Bay The upper right land is New Jersey, the left side being Delaware. Dover is also labelled in the lower left. On Delaware's coast is the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge, which appears a darker green color than the majority of the land, and has numerous waterways weaving through it.
Lights in Chile’s central city display an array of colors and densities, reflecting various land uses and differences between the...
The dark image shows the night illumination of the city of Santiago. Colina lights are at the very top of the image, detached from the heart of Santiago. on the left of the city the Airport is visible as slightly separated, but brightly illuminated. On the upper part of the city a dark region is labelled as a park. Maipú is in the lower left, El Bosque the lower center and La Pintana is just right of El Bosque.
The precise geometry of the protected area encompassing an iconic New Zealand volcano is unmistakable from space. View the full...
Mount Taranaki, capped white with snow, is the centerpoint for Egmont National Park. The borders of the park are clearly discernable from space as the land goes from primarily being the light green color of farmland to dark green forested in a perfect ring around the mountain peak. Smaller peaks to the upper left of the image are also forest covered, and some sections around the park remain forested as well, but the land is otherwise, primarily, light green.
Satellite imagery and local data helped researchers assess how landscape features, such as watering holes and vegetation, influence elephant movement....
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.
An extratropical storm system dropped torrential rains on parts of Morocco and Algeria. View the full story
Satellite image of primarily beige landscape, a thin black line divides the image in a rough diagonal. The region above the line has a small amount of land appearing bright green and is labelled Morocco. The region below is labelled Algeria. In the middle right the town Abadla is labelled, in the lower right corner is Sebkha el Melah, where some topography shows through the sands. The Image centers on turquoise blue water pooling floodwater. There are also dark blue waters further left that are zoomed in on.
Images of nighttime lights reveal patterns in population and urban development. View the full story
A night image of the Korean Peninsula shows the Sea of Japan, with cloud coverage in the lower right, and the Yellow Sea on the left of the peninsula. The land highlights capital cities of Pyongyang in the North, and Seoul in the South. There is some illumination visible from Pyongyang, while Seoul is brightly illuminated. The city of Daejeon is also labelled and well illuminated. In the North, Yangdŏk is labelled and appears to have some night illumination as well. The DMZ border between the two countries is highlighted.
Under the cloak of darkness, Iceberg A-83 wiggled away from glue-like sea ice and drifted farther from the Brunt Ice...
The Antarctic is displayed on a thermal image cooler regions are white to blue, the warmest temperatures are yellow and the neutral color is purple. The Brunt Ice shelf on the right is very cold. The Iceberg A-83 is equally as cool and just offshore from the ice shelf. A couple orange spots peak through near the iceberg, one between it and the McDonald Ice Rumples. At the very bottom of the image the water is primarily purple. The remainder of the Weddell sea is comprised of sea-ice and appears a darker shade of blue.
Rugged terrain on New Zealand’s South Island gives rise to a distinctive lenticular cloud formation, known locally as the Taieri...
Coastal New Zealand is shown, the land is depicted left and the Pacific Ocean right. At the left edge of the image is a rusty brown colored land labeled Rock and Pillar Range. It ends before reaching the top of the image where the Kakanui Mountains descend from the top center diagonally down to the coast. A large cloud sliver appears between these two high elevation formations, casting a visible shadow onto the land below. At the bottom of the shadow the town of Middlemarch is labeled. Right of the cloud and below the Kakanui Mountains a mine is labelled and the color of the land is different in that spot. on the Southern coast the City of Dunedin is labelled.
Fueled by warm water in the Gulf of Mexico, the hurricane will be the third to make landfall in the...
Swirling white clouds appear centered over the Gulf of Mexico. The outer bands cover the U.S. Gulf Coast, though only the panhandle of Florida is pictured.
Intense blazes, including the Line fire, supercharged afternoon convective clouds. View the full story
grey to sand colored clouds billow and occupy most of the image. The bottom of the image is the only area where land can be seen. In the bottom left Seven Oaks Dam is labeled. In the bottom center CA 38 Highway is labeled. Slightly above the highway orange flames are visible and in the bottom right an orange spot is labeled an Active fire.
The glacier’s Main Branch pulled away from a stabilizing rocky outcrop, while melting along the West Branch exposed “new gravelly...
The image centers the waters of a fjord and surrounding mountains. Glaciers meet the waters at the top left, the west branch and top right, the Main Branch. The waters converge and make their way toward open ocean out of from at the bottom center. At the bottom center is Heather Island. Mountains at the bottom of the image are green with foliage, but peaked with snow coverage. Further up the image the land is nearly entirely snow covered. On the right edge of where the meltwater branches converge Great Nunatak is labeled. A rocky outcrop is labelled between Great Nunatak and the leading edge of the Main Branch.
Drought has amplified fire activity across the continent, contributing to exceptionally high carbon emissions in Bolivia and Brazil. View the...
A distant capture of the Earth focused over the Americas include significant cloud coverage, primarily over the oceans. However, a grayer shade of atmospheric coverage is obscuring much of the Amazon basin. This smoke also seems to travel south toward Argentina.
Algal communities flourish in Lake Erie’s western basin each summer. Scientists are looking to new NASA technology to better track...
Lake Erie, filling the top of the image, appears green, with brighter green coloration on the left. The bright green section is labelled as a Bloom. At the bottom of the image is Ohio, which consists of mostly gridded roads and green fields.
China’s capital city boasts a diversity of structures, from its historic city center to the concentric roads and high-speed railway...
The image of Beijing from above features the Forbidden City slightly left of the image center. A moat appears on the right, diagonal to the image orientation. Numerous ring roads surround the Forbidden city and beyond the 4th ring road the landscape seems to change color from gray to beige. A lake is labelled up and left of the Forbidden City. Yongding River is on the very left center edge, just outside of the 5th ring road. In the bottom center is High-speed railway. The 6th ring road extends far out and is labelled in the upper right corner. The Airport and Wenyu River appear to be mostly inside the 6th ring road
After hitting the Philippines, the powerful storm is churning toward landfall near China’s Hainan Island. View the full story
Swirling clouds obscure most of the image. The Philippines are labelled and the coastal outline is superimposed over the clouds. Vietnam and Da Nang are pictured right, slightly visible beneath a layer of clouds. The cloud coverage gives way in the upper third, showing the green landmass of China and with Hong Kong on the very edge of the densest cloud cover. Cities of Zhanjiang and Haiphong are also labelled as coastal cities further to the left of the storm center. The Island of Hainan is outline is super imposed on the clouds in the center left of the image.
Flash flooding has inundated villages, swamped farmland, and damaged infrastructure. View the full story
The light brown colored land shows the Nile River, left, with the city of Atbarah at the intersection with another river, center left. The Merowe Reservoir is a dark blue body of water on the Nile on the far of the image. The border of the river appear green, feeder valleys from further right in the image all appear bright blue and channel toward the Nile. In the upper right are the dark open waters of the Red Sea with Port Sudan on the coast and some vivid bright blue cloud slightly further inland.
Burning for weeks, the Wapiti and Middle Fork Complex fires have charred tens of thousands of acres. View the full...
Beige colored landscape in the lower left surrounds Boise in the corner of the image. It gives way to rising mountainous regions covered in green. Interspersed in the Boise National Forest and Sawtooth National Forest are webs of smoke that seem to follow many of the Forest valleys. In the upper right corner there is a marker for town of Stanley.
The setting for John Henry’s legendary contest with a steam-powered drill may have been this tunnel through Big Bend Mountain...
Lush, green mountainous landscape, with Big Bend Mountain at the top of the image. A river runs down the left side of the image, along with some Railroad tracks. Greenbrier River Meanders vertically along the right side of the image with farm fields appearing common to the right side of the river. Centered in the image are points for the west tunnel west and east entrance. To the right of the tunnels is the town of Talcott.
The polar vortex elongated and weakened over Antarctica, causing rare warming events. View the full story
Two views looking at the south pole with a temperature color gradient overlay. The temperatures start at -75 and increase to equal or more than -35 Celsius ranging from a deep purple to a bright orange white color. The left image shows the temperature gradient evenly shifting warmer as you move away from the pole. On the right the cold temperatures are a elongated significantly toward the top and bottom of the image, but is very narrow, with warmer temperatures closer to the pole than on the left.
An array of satellite sensors observed the long-duration, episodic spread of the state’s historic fire. View the full story
A dark V shaped region is outlined in orange. Below the burned region are the cities of Forest Ranch, Paradise, and Chico. Los Molinos and Red Bluff are to the left. The land to the right is more mountainous and sage green, to the left the land appears to be a valley and primarily beige but land appears to be farmed along the river flowing down the center of the valley.
Smooth beaches meet rugged alpine terrain along this section of coastline in southwestern Italy. View the full story
The Gulf of Policastro has medium blue waters with brighter water near the coast due to sediment. The land, occupying the upper half of the image, is mountainous, including Monte Sirino, snowcapped, in the top left. Sapri is noted on the coastline, farther right Praia a Mare, further right still Scalea. To the right of Scalea is the Lao River, and the Noce River is to the left of Praia a Mare.
The powerful storm triggered landslides, power outages, and flooding in southern parts of the country. View the full story
Clouds from Typhoon Shanshan swirl over and cover the entirety of Japan. Japan is depicted as an outline of the island superimposed over the clouds. Rich blue ocean waters peak surround the cloud. A narrow gap between the storm and other clouds over the Korean peninsula exist. The western section of the peninsula appears a lush green color. A timeline shows the path of the eye of the typhoon, from August 25, 0:00 UTC in the bottom right corner a string of dots meanders up and left to August 28, 6:00 UTC. From there the storm proceeds directly north until making landfall in Japan. The final time marker is August 29, 6:00 UTC
The 56-foot wave in Pedersen Lagoon, on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, damaged trees and left a mark on the landscape. View...
Snow covered land dominates the left side of the image with the Pedersen glacier highlighted, descending into a lagoon in the center of the image. The lagoon meets open waters on the right. Just above the Pedersen Glacier is the highlighted muddy colored path up to the ice pack toward the top of the image where a Landslide took place. The middle of the image, dotted with snow coverage compared to the left, is primarily covered in deep green foliage.
Desert winds kicked up a cloud of dust from northern Africa. View the full story
The Moroccan coastline runs diagonally across the image. The land is on the right and largely beige and brown in color. The Atlantic Ocean on the left along with some small islands. Significant cloud coverage is interspersed over the dark blue ocean waters. Light colored dust blows off the land in the center of the image, obscuring the ocean below somewhat.
Hurricane Hone brought soaking rains to Hawaii when it passed south of the island chain, and more storms brewed to...
Dark blue ocean waters of the pacific dominate the image with significant cloud coverage scattered across the image. Centering in the image is a swirl of clouds labelled Hurricane Gilma, to the left, covering Hawaii is a mass of clouds labelled Hurrican Hone. Tropical Storm Hector is in the lower right which is less organized. The Southwestern United States and Mexico are seen in the upper right.
The country’s government is relocating to a brand-new city in the desert outside of Cairo. View the full story
Amid the bright beige landscape there are roads with central zones in the top right, and image center, where more roads extend from radially and ring around a dark spot labelled "The Octagon" with a sports complex down below one of the major roadways from there. The other built up region is labelled the Government district, and is oriented in a cross.
Urban and agricultural landscapes abut the U.S.–Mexico border in this part of the Sonoran Desert. View the full story
The beige city streets are surrounded by farm fields before giving way to sandy terrain. To the right the land plots are less regular compared to those on the left of the city, which are neatly gridded. The farm land to the left is also darker in color.
In summer 2024, NASA scientists went to northern Greenland to study how clouds and atmospheric particles may be contributing to...
Ice covers the landmass of Greenland (right) and islands of northern Canada (left) with dark waters between and broken sea ice littering the waters.
Amid drought in southern Texas and northern Mexico, Amistad Reservoir has hit record-low levels. View the full story
gray-brown landscape surrounds the Rio Grande and Devils rivers converging at a dam in the bottom right of the image and entering from the top left and top right of the image respectively. The dammed waterway is narrow and the banks, in many places are paler than the surrounding land.
The sport can be played on Earth’s distinctive green courses, such as those around Chicago, and even on the Moon’s...
Amidst city gridded streets a vertical path of green foliage around the Chicago river interrupts the gray of city streets. Additional green spaces show up within the city sporadically, most, clearly golf courses. Two in the upper left, two adjacent to the river path and three to the right of that, spread apart evenly.
Heat and wind gusts helped the blazes spread through over 5,700 hectares of forest. View the full story
Satellite image of an island emitting smoke from the island's center which drifts toward the bottom left of the image. The island is primarily a deep green color with the coastline closer to the bottom showing much more brown coloration.
Elevation data collected during a space shuttle mission in 2000 continues to inform science and society in unexpected ways. View...
Map image of earth with labels for various features under study.
Mid-morning sunlight illuminated snow-covered farmland and cliffs along the Des Lacs River valley. View the full story
A completely snow covered landscape shows signs of the landscape below. A river valley traverses upper right to the bottom left corner of the image. To the right of the river valley there are numerous gullies with tributaries that feed into the river. To the left is a more flat open field.
It took feats of engineering and deft piloting to map the planet’s topography, an achievement that continues to pay dividends...
Three images of various angles of the globe, one centered on East Asia and Oceania, the center on the Americas, the right on Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. All images are showing the globe from a northern hemisphere tilt. The land masses are all depicted in gray with a red gridded overlay.
The storm dropped torrential rain on Puerto Rico before intensifying in the Atlantic. View the full story
A swirl of clouds features on the right side of the image over the dark blue Atlantic Ocean. Cuba's long island borders the lower left of the image. Florida and the coast of the states of Georgia and South Carolina frame in the left side of the image.
Erosion-resistant glacial sediment in the landslide deposit limited the extent of flooding downstream. View the full story
Three images of the same section of land are stitched together horizontally. The feature of the images is the Chilcotin River in it's natural state, a narrow seafoam colored water meandering slightly across the landscape, then breaching its banks as it is blocked by a landslide, and eventually the landslide giving way, the river very brown with sediment and the width of the river between the first two as it returns to equilibrium.
High summer temperatures caused record melting of the Norwegian archipelago’s glaciers. View the full story
Satellite image of an island that is nearly covered in white and gray snow and ice. The exposed land of the island is mostly jagged uneven shorelines and the land a mix of gray and brown. The ice is reflective, a brighter white, towards the centers of the ice packs, and gradually gray toward the coast.
These shallow Arctic waters frequently produce phytoplankton blooms spanning hundreds of kilometers in the summer. View the full story
Green coastline is visible in the lower left corner with dark blue ocean waters filling the majority of the image. Amid the dark blue waters is a cloud of light blue-green water, the lightest section in the center right, the coloration eddies off and disperses toward the upper left.
The city’s urban heat island could add to the challenge for Olympic marathoners. View the full story
The image shows a heatscale of Paris. Notable features of the city are highlighted, as is the marathon route. While there are vegetated areas that display in the cooler blue color temperature the majority of the map shows up in red.
Dams along the ephemeral river help protect Benghazi against floodwater coming from the wadi and its watershed. View the full...
A dammed river splits this image down the middle, above the dam the land appears to be more challenging terrain, with dark valleys sprawling in all directions. In the lower portion of the image the land appears universally darker and hosts numerous agricultural fields.
Dense smoke streamed from rainforests in Amazonas and Pará. View the full story
The dark green landscape of the Amazon is interrupted by patches of light brown along the bottom and right side of the image. There is also some light brown patching diagonally in the top left. A smoky haze emanates from each of these regions.
The storm delivered rainfall totals of more than a foot to parts of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas before marching...
Rainfall measurements are assigned color from white, indicating no rain, to blue and red. The darkest red would be 30 centimeters of rain. This scale is superimposed over a color free map of the Southeast United States and shows the Gulf Coast of Florida in a deep shade of red, the shade intensity lessens as it stretches inland, however, the color darkens as it heads into coastal South Carolina. The remainder of pictured East Coast shows blue to light yellow coded amounts of rainfall.
Despite overall declines in the thickness and extent of Arctic sea ice, shipping routes along the northern coast of North...
The image highlights various shipping paths through water channels in northern Canada, which are mostly full of Sea ice, and all paths are at least partially blocked by Sea ice.
Debris from a landslide in British Columbia blocked the river’s flow for several days before water found a way through....
A seafoam green river stretches from the top left to the lower center right. The river appears to be completely blocked by a mass of light brown land in it's path and cuts into the otherwise green landscape on that side of the river.
The Category 1 storm battered the Big Bend region and is forecast to dump intense rainfall over the U.S. Southeast....
The white large spiral cloud formation of a hurricane can be seen over night imagery of the Southeast United states. The densest part of the storm is over the northern Florida Gulf Coast region, but bands of clouds extend into most of Florida and as far north as North Carolina. City lighting is visible, particularly bright is the Eastern Coast of Florida, and the sprawling lights of greater Atlanta. State borders are superimposed on the land as well.
Tales about the southern English town and its conspicuous hill date back to the Middle Ages. View the full story
Two town centers stand out amid a patchwork of mostly vibrant green fields. The town that centers is Glastonbury, down and left of the Glastonbury is a town named street.
Bold hues paint the landscape around this Brazilian river. View the full story
The light blue green river has dozens of peninsulas with orange borders between the land and water. The land has circular crop fields and a lot of rust red/orange ground as well as dark green vegetation.
Currents, tides, and winds arrange the basin’s floating ice into intricate patterns during the summer melting season. View the full...
Four islands, all brown land, are pictured. Baffin Island occupies the entire upper right corner, and Prince Charles Island the lower left. Between those two islands are two smaller islands, Foley and Air Force islands, with broken sea ice around both. Ocean is clearly visible in a dark blue in the upper left corner near Foley Island.
Fresh powder fell on the country’s tallest peaks and popular ski resorts. View the full story
Mountain peaks run vertically down this image, covered in snow. To the left of the snowy mountains are dark green peaks and light green valleys. To the right of the snowy peaks the land appears more brown through the sporadic cloud coverage.
Criss-crossing boat wakes left their mark in a phytoplankton bloom drifting near Block Island. View the full story
In the blue-green ocean a small island sits to the left portion of the image. The green island is outlined with a bright somewhat yellow border of beach and has an inland pond connected to the ocean.
In southeast British Columbia, Canada, a cluster of wildland fires surrounding Slocan Lake threatened villages and blanketed the region in...
The image shows the valley—bounded by the Valhalla Range to the west and the Slocan Range to the east—filled with smoke. Slocan Lake appears near center, stretching vertically, as a dark poorly defined region through the haze.
The Northern California blaze expanded at lightning speed amid record heat and high winds, leaving behind a vast burned area....
The satellite image centers a dark brown patch amid vibrant green landscape and runs largely parallel to the Sacramento River. The upper portion of the image is slightly obfuscated by smoke.
Visitors to this national park in southern Utah can witness geologic landforms by day and a celestial light show by...
An overnight satellite photo with state lines superimposed as well as the borders of Bryce Canyon National Park shows city lights breaking through the dark landscape at Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. Bryce Canyon is, however, centered in a sea of dark.
From reflective snow and ice to the glowing towns along the Trans-Siberian Railway, nighttime near the world’s largest freshwater lake...
The image from the the International Space Station shows the solar arrays interrupting the top of the view of Earth. The landscape shows significant white reflective regions due to snow coverage. There are are also some city lights, most notably Irkutsk, dotting the landscape.
The eastern part of the bay has had open water since May. View the full story
The satellite image of the Hudson Bay shows a thin strip of sea ice along the western edge of the bay.
Hundreds of wildland fires lofted sky-dulling smoke over Canada and the United States. View the full story
From Paris to Tahiti, the venues of the 2024 Summer Olympics showcase some of France’s iconic landmarks. View the full...
Satellite image of Paris highlighting both significant landmarks as well as Olympics facilities
The Pacific island has a storied past in the study of atoll formation and a tenuous future as it adapts...
A broken ring of land interrupts the dark blue Pacific Ocean with a lagoon in the interior of the ring.
One of the most productive gold mines in Australia lies in the Great Sandy Desert. View the full story
The rust red landscape is interrupted by an open pit mine that leaves the land gray and white. It stretches vaguely diagonally across the image, with a nearly perfectly round area toward the bottom right for a tailings pond.
The remote atoll in the tropical Pacific Ocean is a haven for animals of all kinds, though scientists find that...
A strip of land and shallow waters centers in the image, aligned horizontal, surrounded by the dark blue of the Pacific Ocean. The atoll's interior boundaries also shows some dark blue waters.
Flashes of light illuminated the textures of cloud tops during a nighttime storm over the region. View the full story
Webs of blue light appear in two places on the image, top right and bottom right, as lightning illuminates the night clouds. In the lower left of the image lights of cities are visible, but the dark cloud obscures the natural boundaries of those city lights edges.
Fifty-five years after our giant leap, scientists continue to learn about both the Moon and Earth from our celestial neighbor....
The glowing atmosphere of Earth appears at the bottom of the image. Above that, centered in the image, is the moon appearing mostly in dim light, with only a sliver appearing brightly illuminated.
Large wildland fires are burning in the tundra of northern Russia. View the full story
A large v shaped cloud of white smoke fills the upper part of the image and narrows down to the area of origin. At the origin region some land can be seen in a dark brown color compared to the surrounding landscape which is bright green.
Two of the final stages in the 2024 cycling event traverse high mountain passes in the Western Alps. View the...
A map view of Southern Europe focused on the regions of North Italy and France include an overlay of the various stretches of the Tour de France.
Greening projects in Lahore could help cool the city as climate change and rapid urbanization intensifies the urban heat island...
A satellite image heat map of a city in Pakistan where the color range is from blue to yellow to red, the darkest of the colors reflect the temperatures 15C and 35C respectively. The edges of the images show a smattering of blue shades breaking through, but the center of the image where the city is shows up almost universally red or orange, and only a few patches of neutral breaking through.
Fast-moving blazes tore through rangeland in the Pacific Northwest amid excessive heat. View the full story
A blackened patch of earth, still emitting some smoke, stretches diagonally across the majority of this image. The land surrounding is primarily light brown, but there are some crop fields toward the upper left of the burn area and to the lower right of the burn, running parallel to the burn region.
The natural climate phenomenon contributed to upheavals in temperature and rainfall patterns across the globe. View the full story
The image shows two sea surface topographic maps of the Pacific Ocean where elevation is indicated by color gradient. Neutral elevation is white, and below average elevation gradually more blue, and higher elevations are more red. The Image on the left has a dark red streak near the equator toward South America, and a dark blue region near Indonesia. On the right the elevation differences are not nearly as drastic and colors are much closer to neutral white on average.
Erosion, tectonic uplift, and a human-built dam have all helped shape the Upper Lake Powell area in Utah. View the...
The orange-beige rock in the image with the meandering Lake Powell moving around the center of the very center of the image where the large rock formation, "The Horn," appears. The image shows numerous canyons on all sides, also snaking their way down to Lake Powell.
As summer heat hit the western and eastern U.S. in July 2024, temperatures have been especially high in the Southwest....
A map of North America with state boundaries and temperature gradient coloring overlay. The temperature gradient ranges from white at 10 degrees centigrade and increasingly darker shades of red up to 40 degrees centigrade, which is the darkest shade of the range. The region around the great lakes and the altitude peaks appear a somewhat lighter shade of orange, but the vast majority of the map is in a solid red shade, with the West coast having much territory indistinguishable from black and the East coast also being a darker shade of red than more inland territory.
Fires have been flaring periodically in this eastern region of Russia since May. View the full story
A satellite image of a very green landscape has numerous points of origin for smoke. The smoke is moving toward the bottom left of the image from these many points of origin and nearly block the land from view in the bottom left part of the image. Along the right edge are some scattered clouds, distinctly whiter than the blue-gray smoke.
The Category 4 hurricane caused widespread damage to infrastructure and vegetation on the Grenadine island. View the full story
Amid coastal turquoise blue waters a remarkably brown colored island exists in two connected segments, one vertical, the tip at the top right of the image, and then branching left at nearly 90 degrees is another relatively narrow segment of land. The full island is in view and individual roadways remain visible in this satellite image.
The early season hurricane downed trees and cut off power for over two million homes and businesses near Houston. View...
A circular cloud formation is shown with the coastal outline of Southern Texas and Louisiana superimposed on the image. The cloud centers on Houston and at the edges of the blanket of white clouds radiate outward in spokes along the left of the storm. Western Texas city lighting can also be seen in the dark.
Once one of the poorest regions of Mexico, Cancún is now a bustling tourist city with millions of visitors each...
The vast green landspace around the coastal city takes a vast majority of the image space, with the water to the right appearing in a gradient of vibrant teal to a deep dark blue farther from the coast. The human settlement is centered primarily around a single road in until you near the coast, at which point the city is densely packed and reflects bright white with only a few, and mostly small green spaces interspersed.
The island is Australia's smallest state, but its mainland fills the frame of this astronaut photograph. View the full story
The island appears surrounded by a neutral shade of blue ocean. The island has two large regions spanning away from the center toward top and right of the image. The left of the island appears to be mostly green with the right side more brown in hue. The upper and right protrusions from the center of the island seem to be significantly cloud covered and appear white.
The barrier island in Texas has much to teach about barrier islands and Martian life. View the full story
A barrier island spans the image diagonally, with the Gulf of Mexico at the top and inland water at the bottom. The strip of land is almost entirely beige sand, however the Gulf side has some vegetation creating dark patches and affecting the topography as well as a patchy dark shade sweeping through the more central part of the island. Splitting the island is a dredged channel and jetty with the dredged sand being left in the inland waterway to create small islands of its own.
For many people, there is great joy and good summer business to be found on the widest beach in New...
A peninsula extending from the top of the image shows light blue waters surrounding it. The left of the peninsula shows significant human habitation, but also significant green space, along the right of the peninsula are narrow inland waterways and a heavily occupied barrier island with a wide sandy beach.
Assateague, Chincoteague, and Wallops provide a rare example of overlapping barrier islands. All of them are constantly in motion. View...
A coastal image with mainland diagonally taking up the left of the image consisting of majority green space and crop fields, barrier islands and the bays behind them centered and parallel to the shore, and the open water to the right, in a pale blue. The bays are a pale blue-green in color due to their depth and turbidity compared to the ocean.
This stretch of coastline in Western Australia is a popular recreational site for people and an important stopover site for...
The image shows the coastline, slightly curved, but smooth, with ocean on the left and the land to the right. The land occupies over half the image and is seen in an orange brown shade with the exception of the coastline and an inland valley being white with salt.
The white sands of Florida’s Emerald Coast beaches are primarily comprised of quartz grains from the southern Appalachian Mountains. View...
A barrier island splits this image horizontally, the more turquoise water of the Gulf of Mexico are seen at the bottom of the image and the more turbid water of Choctawhatchee Bay are seen above. The barrier island features an inlet where the land naturally narrows, but there is significant human settlement along the wider land to the right of the inlet.
Plumes of volcanic material traveled by air and by sea as the small Pacific island erupted in June 2024. View...
In a dark blue ocean there is a green cloudy tinge to the water emanating from the volcanic island peaking above the water in the upper left of center part of the image. Some small clouds emanate from the volcano and drift left in the atmosphere.
Flanked by mountains, the capital of the Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan lies along a sharp bend in a valley sculpted...
Human settlement evidence is rampant in the river valley that snakes from the bottom center before an S-curve leads out at the top right. The land surrounding this river valley is universally a light brown shade and very mountainous.
Sandy beaches are growing in some parts of the world and shrinking quickly in others, including one-third of marine protected...
A sandy spit of land spans the majority of the image horizontally with breaks on both sides where the ocean, dark blue at the top of the image but heavily clouded with sediment below the island. The island, while having a sandy coast that borders the open ocean, has land with vegetation on the inland side and center, even seeming to include farmland.
A striking plume trailing from the topographic prominence in West Antarctica is likely an orographic cloud. View the full story
Dark, near black ocean surrounds the stark white ice sheet of a peninsula jutting down from the top of the image with clear topographic features compared to the ice sheet further up the image which is particularly smooth. There is also broken up icebergs floating in the water, however, they are mostly somewhat distant from the coastline.
Rivers burst their banks, inundating homes and farmland in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. View the full story
The vibrant green land, largely for farming surrounds the dark water that features in this image. There are three rivers, the Missouri meanders from the top left to the center bottom right, the Floyd from the top right converges with the Missouri in the same area and the Big Sioux coming down from the center top of the image and converges with the Missouri slightly to the left of the Floyd River. The Floyd is abnormally wide, but only at the upstream end, considering the narrow nature of the convergence area with the Missouri. The Big Sioux though has massively overflowed it's banks parallel to the Missouri and in broadened the banks of the Missouri somewhat where the rivers converge.
Record snowfall has not been enough to offset groundwater losses amid long-term drying and a heightened demand for the resource....
A map of the Western United States with a color scale from red to blue where the darkest red indicates a 5 or more centimeter deficit in water per year and darkest blue 5 or more centimeter surplus. With the exception of Eastern Montana and Colorado the entire map is neutral to red shaded with Southern Central California a dark red spot with the entirety of the state in a shade of orange.
Wildland fires burned tens of thousands of acres near mountain communities including the village of Rudioso. View the full story
A dark image that shows light being emitted from Earth's surface is focused on New Mexico. The Cities of El Paso and Albuquerque are vibrant with sporadic town lights along major roadways. There are two lights coming from fires in the center of the image.
Uplift, erosion, and sea level rise all shape this part of Iran’s shoreline. View the full story
A coastline from upper right to lower left with two large bay erosion regions interrupted by a protruding line of land. The land is entirely beige and sandy, and the water is a light blue-green shade along the coast, especially within the bays, but very dark blue otherwise.
Rolling hills of peaty soil store thousands of years of plant matter in northeastern England. View the full story
Land and sea meet diagonally from the center upper left to the bottom right. Along the coast, in the upper left, a human population center, Middlesbrough, is the one break amid rural farmland and the dark topped Moors. The Moors are situated below and to the right of Middlesbrough, following the coastline.
Decades of satellite data paint a picture of how forests in this Central American country are changing. View the full...
A short-lived gap in the clouds let satellites observe a striking phytoplankton bloom east of Greenland. View the full story
Eddies of blue-green can be seen amidst the otherwise dark blue ocean that is peaking through thick white cloud cover at the bottom right of the image and entire top of the image.
The largest tropical rainforest in Mesoamerica is shrinking as pastures and croplands spread across Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico. View the...
A satellite image of coastal region, with ocean on the right and land on the left. The land is overwhelmingly green, with large patches of dark green that reflect forest. The edges of these dark green areas are clearly showing signs of encroaching human population and agriculture.
Tidal currents stir up colorful swirls off the coast of Western Australia. View the full story
The waters of the Indian Ocean off of the broken island covered coastline of Australia along the bottom of the image, swirl with color, from deep blue in the upper left to turquoise and seafoam shades respectively as the water nears the coast. The colors meet in eddies and gradually shift across the image.
This U-shaped series of islets in the Indian Ocean rings a blue-green lagoon of varying depth. View the full story
The atoll is in a U shape with the large break being to the upper left corner of the image despite there being a significant island at that end (Horsburgh) the depth drops off on that end as clearly indicated by the appearance of the water changing from reflecting the sandy bottom through the shallows at the bottom of the U to gradually more turquoise before becoming uniform to the surrounding deep ocean.
Life finds ways to survive on this small volcanic island chain that’s way off the beaten path. View the full...
The image centers on a snow covered peak of a single fairly uniform circle of an island. The vast majority of the island is covered in foliage, the upper ring elevation just below the snowline is a lighter shade of green than that closer to the coast which appears a much deeper darker shade. The island shows a plateau along the coast in the upper left where the human population seems to have settled.
Drought helped spread intense, early-season blazes in one of the world’s largest wetlands. Read the full story
Drought helped spread intense, early-season blazes in one of the world’s largest wetlands.
Moisture-laden tropical air brought intense downpours and flooding to the southern part of the state. Read the full story
Moisture-laden tropical air brought intense downpours and flooding to the southern part of the state.
Ice fragments from Greenland and the Arctic form elaborate swirls as they are swept south. Read the full story
Ice fragments from Greenland and the Arctic form elaborate swirls as they are swept south.
An early summer heat wave broke temperature records in Nevada, Arizona, and California in June 2024. View the full story
Satellite image cutout of the Southwest United States and Northwest Mexico with state borders superimposed in white. The image is color coded from a pale blue to deep, near-black shade of red. The entire map appears to be on the red shade of the spectrum, with the lightest showing light yellow at the peak of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The deepest reds run through the California Valley and expand further inland as the valley gives way to mountains at the south. Deep blackish reds blanket phoenix and Las Vegas, with New Mexico and Texas appearing primarily in dark shades as well.
Dry weather is putting extra strain on the systems that deliver water to Mexico City. View the full story
The blue-green water of the reservoir, centered in this image, has shrunk as formerly submerged lakebed appears around the reservoir. It is particularly noticable in the upper right and lower left of the image, where a population center stretches piers to the water an inordinately long distance from the road and population center.
Moonlit mountains and illuminated towns highlight geographic features on this sparsely populated Russian peninsula. View the full story
In this grayscale image the valley broadens from a narrow point in the top left to a cone that spans the center of the right edge to the lower bottom right. The lighting of a town can be vividly seen as white against the backdrop of craggy landscape filled with valleys leading to the low center where the Kamchatka river appears completely dark. The land surrounding this valley seems to be completely blacked out.
The remote archipelago is flanked by extensive coral reef areas, but these hubs of biodiversity face a summer of sweltering...
The satellite image centers Culebra Island surrounded by deep blue ocean. there are three significantly sized surrounding islands one to the center left of the image, two to the right, positioned at the center and upper portion of the image. The two islands to the right extend a coral reef that wraps around the shape of the island at a relatively consistent distance from the shore. The island itself shows one major outpost of civilization centered at the end of the mouth of the bay.
Venezuela is the first postglacial nation in the Andes, as its last substantial patch of ice is now considered too...
The land depicted by satellite image is mostly bare brown rock, however, in the center right and center left are areas where there has been past glacial activity and the rock appears eroded and more bright in shade. in both the top left and bottom right of the image foliage is apparent as the land fades from brown to green.
Strong winds and ample fuel helped spread flames over 14,000 acres of grassland in San Joaquin County. View the full...
along the left side of a Freeway which runs diagonally across the image from upper left to lower center right hilly or mountainous terrain runs parallel. A patch of that hillside in the lower central, appears thoroughly black. there are some patches of untouched land with the burn scar but it seems to stop fairly uniformly, possibly at the geological feature of a crest of land. to the upper and right portion of the image is largely green farm fields separated out in gridded patterns.
Emissions of the potent greenhouse gas may be higher than previously thought, especially from landfills. View the full story
A satellite viewpoint of the United States in black with state outline overlays has a pixelated colorscale overlay indicating how much methane was released in a given area that ranges from black or dark brown into brassier colors until you reach white. While most of the map is a very dark shade, indicating little methane emissions, there are a few spots on the map that range into, or very nearly reach a white coloration. The two most significant of these white spots in size and lightness are in Texas Eastern and Western Borders. Other large population centers also show elevated levels such as the California Valley and Bay Area.
A volcanic fissure on the Reykjanes peninsula came alive again with voluminous, vigorous flows. View the full story
Satellite image of Reykjanes with infrared overlay to highlight the lavaflow shows two flow origins in a bright white with lava rivers coming from each. The land immediately surrounding this lava flow is dark black from previous lava flows. Clouds occupy the top center and right of the image and ocean the lower portion of the image with a population center on the coast.
This map reveals the depth of floodwater that covered Rio Grande do Sul in May 2024. View the full story
Satellite image shown in false color. the land and broader sea are grayscale, with the Jacuí and surrounding floodplains shown in a scale of blue from near white to a navy blue, the darker the color the deeper the water in meters. The River runs left to right with a few contributing tributaries coming down to the river from the top of the image and at their center runs a dark blue channel that are the ordinary banks for the river, however, near the mouth there is a zoomed in section of the image showing how expansive and deep sections of the flooding have become.
A former island and a desert are among the newcomers to the dry landscape following the lake’s rapid decline. View...
This image of the desert from space shows a few seemingly small bodies of water in a sea of gray and beige landscape. At the center left edge of the image is a longitudinal body of water labeled the South Aral Sea. It extends to the top middle left of the image and is quite narrow. Two small pools exist between this and the North Aral Sea in the upper right, which is blue green in color and is primarily composed of three connected rounded pools. At a right angle to both the land appears gray and aberrant from the surrounding desert sands.
In Puerto Rico, corals, seagrass, and mangroves paint a colorful Caribbean scene by day, while the waters of a rare...
In this satellite image a group of fringing and patch reefs runs parallel to the shore. Mangrove trees, which appear dark green, line the coast and dot some of the coral islands. Seagrass beds extend offshore from the mangroves and on the lee side of linear reefs. Signs of these tropical marine ecosystems are visible in this image. The color of the water varies from turquoise near these reefs to an average blue.
Researchers are using satellites to track a spreading trend in agriculture—the use of greenhouses. View the full story
Land centering around a streak of green that make up the banks of the Mihe River, which runs between the top center right of the image to the bottom center left of the image, is almost entirely gray, the color of a greenhouse from satellite images. on the outermost perimeters of the image there are smatterings of green, but some small pockets of greenhouses as well.
The destructive tornado destroyed homes, downed wind turbines and power lines, snapped trees, and shredded roofs. View the full story
Satellite image of a town centers the image surrounded by gridded roads and farmland in dark green and brown. Diagonally from the bottom left into the town a faint discoloration of the landscape is visible which becomes pronounced when it intersects the town where the green yards and fields are discolored significantly with light brown dust and debris from the destruction. The town is zoomed in on via in a square superimposed over the lower right of the image.
The nutrient-loaded Northern California lake turned green with algal growth in spring 2024. View the full story
Surrounded by a mixture of green landscape and dry landscape is Clear Lake, which appears a vibrant light green. The lake has a peninsula jutting into the side of it from the bottom of the image, from that point the lake stretches into two more longitudinal legs to the bottom right, and to the left is the majority of the surface area of the lake, more open and rounded, stretching up to the left. Below and this section farm land is discernable and to the left or the lake is a notable population center. Another population center is at the bottom right, and there are some smaller ones scattered around the coastline.
Everything’s bigger in Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park, where unique wildlife, plains, wetlands, and animal-engineered landscapes all exist on a...
Satellite image of forested land. in the lower right a brown water Lake Claire exists, The peace river in the lower middled meanders from the lower middle right to the lower left another unnamed brown water lake exists in the top left. Other bodies of water appear, also largely in the upper left, scattered and much smaller, but also appear extremely dark in color
In central Asia, jagged mountain peaks rise high above the steppe. View the full story
Mountain peaks span the entire bottom of the image, but also reached the upper right of the image in a steady diagonal. The lower portion of mountains appear bright white, illuminated by the sun, but cast a shadow on most of the rest of the mountains as well as the snow covered plain above.
President Lyndon Johnson recognized this small town in upstate New York for being among the first to celebrate Memorial Day....
Two dark colored longitudinal lakes break up the landscape of gridded green and brown fields, most likely for farming. Between the two at the bottom of the image is a darker single large square that is the Army Depot. A river connects the two lakes at the top end of them both. Along that river is notable signs of populace concentrations, including Waterloo halfway down the river.
Braided rivers, landslide debris, and alluvial fans are spread across this dynamic landscape in Glacier Bay National Park. View the...
Deep dark green forest surrounds a bright turquoise blue waters that make up Adam's Inlet, which is filled with random deposition peaks from former glacial activity that are also now covered in deep green foliage. The surrounding mountain valley's are full of a bright color sediment deposited by erosion of glaciers, rain, and meltwater. A very large sediment river empties into the inlet from the top of the image, from the bottom a smaller one creates a classic alluvial fan deposit formation in the inlet, and is already being claimed by foliage.
The Brunt Ice Shelf lost a large wedge of floating ice, the third sizeable iceberg to calve from the shelf...
Mostly orange colored ocean water is seen left with light to dark blue ice depicted right. The boundary between them is primarily a diagonal from top center right to lower left. The water nearest the ice takes on a more yellow color than the darker sea to the left, and it cuts down into the ice shelf at a steep angle just below the image top center. The gap between the ice bodies then takes a more narrow 90 degree turn and reconnects to open ocean near the bottom left, creating full separation and an iceberg that is just beginning to depart the ice shelf.
Destructive winds left many people in the most populous city in Texas without power. View the full story
A night satellite image of greater Houston shows sprawling grids of major roadways brightly illuminated. However, there are pockets of darkness within what are highly populated areas that should be accordingly illuminated.
Contrasting colors of lava and ash reveal the geologic origins of Harrat Khaybar’s volcanic cones. View the full story
This satellite image shows numerous lava fields the general landscape is a dark brown with veins of lighter color, likely caused by erosion over the decades. The land is also pock marked with craters, at the top of the image the lavaflow leaves a distinctly black rock, and butted right below that is a light beige volcanic deposit, creating significant contrast. down and too the right there continue to be more craters and deposits is a more neutral brown color, but there is another, but more eroded black lava flow toward the bottom of the image
Strong winds kicked up sand and dust from China’s vast Taklimakan Desert. View the full story
Satellite image of the light tan, nearly off-white, Tarim basin. There are some small lakes in the mountainous region seen lower right and those mountains span center right to lower left, speckled with snow and ice. In the top left there appears to be either ice or wispy cloud cover.
Large tidal swings expose a plateau-shaped reef around Australia’s Yawajaba island at low tide. View the full story
An island centers in the image, with clearly defined sandy shores in the bright blue Indian Ocean. However, there is a dark ring created by a reef around the island, some bright sand peaks above the water. There is also a sandbar going up the left side of the image.
Farmers grow a variety of crops along river floodplains near Lyon. View the full story
The Rhône River skirts the perimeter of the image and is joined by the Ain River near the bottom of the scene. The Rhône River appears dark blue, while the Ain River has a brown hue due to its higher concentration of suspended sediment. The river floodplains include meander scars and oxbow cutoffs, several of which are filled with dark green vegetation. Angular agricultural fields range from tan to green and vary in color due to primary crops, such as wheat, barley, rapeseed, corn, and sunflowers. Reddish agricultural plots indicate recent planting or tilling.
Ancient hominin fossils lie beneath the sandy soils on the outskirts of this village in southern Spain. View the full...
Satellite photo of largely dry light brown sandy Spain. A river runs from the middle left to the middle right side of the image and the land through this area is darker. A small dark patch of land is seen center left and bottom right there is another dark patch.
For the second year in a row, California’s largest reservoir filled to nearly 100 percent capacity. View the full story
The lush green landscape around Lake Shasta gives way to the numerous flooded valleys that constitute the lake.
Space scientists and sky-watchers were treated to a stunning display of the northern lights in May 2024. View the full...
A nighttime satellite view of the United states, with state boundary overlays, centering the Iowa-Nebraska-Missourri border. The illumination of major city lights can be seen, most prominently Chicago in the upper middle right of the image. Just North of that you can see the densest part of a white haze that constitutes the Aurora can be seen. It spans the width of the image and is brightest on the far left over Montana. The belt of light curves steadily over the more northern US states with swirls of higher density.
Satellites captured an expansive blue and green phytoplankton bloom in the waters off France. View the full story
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.
Unusually early and intense fires are spreading rapidly amid drought and high winds. View the full story
Satellite photo of a deep green landscape. The top right corner is mostly covered by a patchwork of small altocumulus clouds, the land showing between not significant enough to make any discernable insights. A much smaller patch of similar clouds are also found in the lower left. Streaked between the two patches of clouds is a significant amount of smoke, discernable origin points near the top left, mid center left where Fort Nelson is, and lower center. The smoke is blown to the right of the image and the origin points are opaque, but the bottom right appears somewhat translucent and imparts a somewhat blue hue to the ground seen below.
Michigan’s Ludington Pumped Storage Plant uses excess electricity to pump water uphill, which generates power when it flows back down....
Lake Michigan is shown left in a rich blue and the state of Michigan is shown left. The land appears to largely be farmland in gridded fields, but most notably just barely inland from the coasts is an oblong lake stretched top to bottom parallel to lake Michigan. The two lakes are joined by a dam. The Natural coastline of Michigan is disturbed by a carveout for the dam outflow with a thin line of the breakwater visible in the lake directly in front of the dam
Torrential rains have unleashed widespread and destructive flooding in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state. View the full story
The Jacui River at Rio Grande do Sul shows the already wide river banks being breeched by the rivers mocha brown waters. Within the river banks numerous islands in the river's delta now appear as only river bars. The main city shows roadway between rooftops the same color as the river unlike further inland where roads between homes appear dark from asphalt. The Salgado Filho International Airport field has disappeared entirely beneath the floodwaters.
NASA’s newest Earth science satellite captured a striking image of swirling bands of phytoplankton. View the full story
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.
A May storm dumped over two feet of snow in one day on parts of the California mountain range. View...
A false color satellite image of California where snow is highlighted light blue. The Eastern portion of the state shows a significant degree of snow coverage and to the west the land is a vibrant green.
The peak of the blooming season brought vibrant colors to the Dutch landscape. View the full story
Long, rectangular fields of red, yellow, and pink flowers pop out against the surrounding green and brown terrain.
Months before the arrival of tourists and migrating birds, this high-elevation lake on the Tibetan Plateau was glazed with ice....
In this winter scene, a sheet of cracked ice tops part of the lake (right side of the image). On the left side, open water appears blue. Shallow water offshore of a delta, formed by a small, winding river, appears green. Several roads cut across the landscape, including one with switchbacks that ascends a steep slope.
NASA citizen scientists collected thousands of photographs and temperature readings that are being used to study the relationship between total...
Cloudy satellite view of the northeastern and northern Midwest of the united states with an overlay of the recent solar eclipse path denoted by two parallel lines.
NASA satellites are helping track tiger habitat, offering hope and new insights for conservation as these predators face the consequences...
Exacerbated by El Niño, heavy rains in spring 2024 caused severe flooding in Tanzania’s Rufiji district, among other areas in...
Severe drought in Zambia jeopardizes electricity supplies and food security for millions of people. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/152746/parched-kafue-flats
Satellite view of mixed brown and green covered land. The Kafue River and Lake Manyeke center, and show especially dry and craggy land around their banks.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/152742/global-accounting-of-earths-rivers. View the full story
global map divided by river basins in shades of blue, where darker shades indicate higher total water volume
Over the past two and a half decades, EO has published more than 18,000 image-driven stories. This video highlights some...
Agricultural plots are carpeted in yellow when rapeseed or canola plants bloom. View the full story
The confluence of the Olt River, from top left directly to bottom center, with the Danube River, along the bottom of this satellite image, are shown. Above the Danube are a significant number of crop fields, some brown, but most either black or a vibrant green that is verging on yellow.
Clouds and haze crash into high-elevation ridges in this oblique photograph, taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station....
brown cragged barren landscape in the foreground immediately butted up against cumulous clouds with opaque haze beyond them
Every spring, satellites observe thick plumes of dust streaming from the Gobi Desert over East Asia. View the full story
The Korean peninsula (left) shows a beige dust partially obscuring the East Coast of North Korea in this satellite image. An vertically oblong phytoplankton bloom occupies the lower third on the right in the sea of Japan, which is otherwise a dark blue, it is partially obscured by dust.
Amid prolonged drought, wet spring weather flooded marshes and greened vegetation in southern Spain. View the full story
satellite photo of coastal landscape with blue green water in the lower left. in the top left seems to be more arid regions. along the top and right are grids of farmland. A river starts at the top right and empties into the edge or the large body of water contributing significant tan colored eddies or turbidity, centering in the image is dark colored swampy wetland
The powerful eruption lofted ash high into the atmosphere and spread tephra and other volcanic debris across the small island...
Ruang Island centers, it is brown in color above to the both right and left are other islands that are a vibrant green color. large white cumulus clouds span the image top right down past ruang to the bottom left.
One of the driest growing seasons in decades has decimated crops and left millions hungry. View the full story
Map of Southern Africa with a blue to brown gradient overlay brown indicating below average rainfall and blue above. From the latitude of Zambia's Northern border South the trend is showing significant brown coloration, some quite dark, especially in the inland and more Eastern part of the continent.
New analysis of a round depression in the salty plains of the Kutch Basin revealed telltale signs of a prehistoric...
The footprint of the newly studied Luna impact crater—named for its proximity to a village of the same name—is visible in this image, acquired by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on the Landsat 8 satellite on February 24, 2024. The crater measures approximately 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles) across, and its outer rim rises about 6 meters (20 feet) above the crater floor.
In the country’s southeast, towering table-top mountains known as tepuis host unique species of flora and fauna. View the full...
The Auyán-tepuí, also called Auyán Massif, towers thousands of feet above the surrounding area, casting shadows along its northern and western edges. The Caroní and Carrao rivers flow west of the massif, converging near Canaima and ultimately joining the Orinoco River.
A powerful storm system battered major cities in the Arabian Peninsula. View the full story
satellite image of the coast on the UAE shows many areas of pooling water indicated in a deep vibrant blue, across the otherwise light sandy brown arid landscape
With the help of icebreaking vessels, Saimaa’s icy waters remain navigable for much of the year. View the full story
An icy lake centers the image with mainland to the right and sporadic islands and some smaller inhabited peninsulas to the left. The land is covered in snow. A vertical line of bright white ice is seen south of the lone visible population center.
Major cities in northwestern Europe shine bright in this nighttime photo, taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station....
Light from cities and towns stands out against the darkness of the English Channel and the North Sea. Some of the largest cities in Western Europe are visible in the photo, including the capital cities of Paris, France; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and London, England. Lighted roads and infrastructure connect these bright metropolitan areas. The photo was taken at an oblique angle and includes Earth’s horizon—also known as Earth’s limb—near the top of the image.
Rivers overtopped their banks and submerged thousands of homes in Russia and Kazakhstan. View the full story
The image is false color (bands 5-4-3) to emphasize the presence of water, which appears blue-green; vegetation appears red. There river in this image fills it's banks and submerged meanders of marsh that exist within them.
Researchers used satellite data to calculate the depth of water in this transient freshwater body. View the full story
Four images of the same location are side by side. They are shown in false color with dry land being black. The areas with color show some of these changes in the lake’s water depth. Deeper areas are blue, and shallower areas are yellow.
Poppies are sparse, but yellow wildflowers are blooming in Southern California. View the full story
Satellite image of fields of yellow wildflowers blanketing Antelope Valley amid solar and wind farms.
This reddish “burning mountain” of granite is the highest point in Namibia. View the full story
Image shows part of the central Namib Desert just inland from the Atlantic Ocean. Brandberg Massif, a circular mass of rock that forms Namibia’s highest mountain, is visible in the center of the image. The mountain stands 2,573 meters (8,442 feet) above sea level.
Astronauts and photographers captured unforgettable views of Earth and the Sun as the Moon’s shadow swept across North America. View...
The image above, taken as the space station orbited above the North Atlantic, shows the eclipse’s dark shadow along with Earth’s bright horizon, or limb, at the boundary between the atmosphere and space. A crew ship docked to the space station is visible in the lower-left corner of the image.
The amount of snow in the California-Nevada mountain range was about average in April 2024—a rare occurrence. View the full...
Satellite image shows the varied landscapes of central and eastern California. On the left is the verdant green San Joaquin Valley, cutting diagonally across the image from top left to bottom right are the Sierra Nevada Mountains which are significantly whitened by this winter's snowfall. To the right is the more arid and sandy climate, typical to Nevada. There are sporadic snow covered peaks.
Human-made lakes along the western U.S. river were drained as part of the world’s largest dam removal project to date....
A river enters the photo at the top right of the image, meandering through the accumulated sediment of what was previously Copco Lake, created by the Copco Dams. The river proceeds to cut its way through the craggy landscape that is covered in light green and brown vegetation. Numerous scars on the landscape indicate where rainwater collects and descends to the river The river enters another silty basin that was the Iron Gate Reservoir
Satellites gathered striking views of the Moon’s shadow from above as observers on the ground were awed by the Sun’s...
A satellite image of North America shows a darkened spot centered on the South Central United States and Mexico with a gradually increasing gradient of visibility as you move outward. The dim spot that strongly limits the visibility of the land spans from West Coast of Mexico to the Florida panhandle
Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand popular with tourists, faces seasonal spikes in air pollution. View the full story
The image shows the sprawling city of Chiang Mai during day. The airport is visible to the lower left of the city center. further left is mountain Doi Suthep, lush green but in all other directions from the city center are signs of human habitations radiating outward broken up by what is presumably farm land.
Distinct textures stand out in this winter scene around Bositeng Lake in China’s Xinjiang region. View the full story
The featureless area at the top left is the smooth water surface of Bositeng Lake, a large lake in the far northwest of China. The slightly curved sand spit offers one indication that the monotonous area is a lake. Spits such as these are common features near lake shores and are produced by waves and longshore currents. In contrast to the smooth surface of the lake is the intricate pattern of a dune field on its south side. Darker surfaces next to and between some of the dunes are wet.
Signs of structural weaknesses may signal a shift in this Antarctic ice shelf’s stability. View the full story
There image is primarily white sea ice with dark ocean at the bottom of the image along with sporadic icebergs. The- feature is the small hole in the Wilkins Ice Shelf that exposes the underlying ocean. This oddity has persisted for decades and is thought to be a rare phenomenon.
Strong winds that race across Lago Colhué Huapi have exposed ancient artifacts amid the dusty surface. View the full story
landmass of Agentina, left, and the Atlantic Ocean, right are featured around the San Jorge Gulf alcove in the coastline. Centered in the image is a horizontal stream of dust that stretches from the inland Lago Musters fully across the gulf and dissipates out in open ocean air. White Cumulus clouds are scattered south and mostly west of the San Jorge Gulf
The latest fissure eruption on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula was the largest of four recent bouts of activity near the town...
The natural color scene is overlaid with an infrared signal to help distinguish the lava’s heat signature. The active part of the fissure and the origin of a volcanic plume are apparent. This is seen in a bright orange slit centered in the image. Lava flows can be seen surrounding toward the top and right of the image where the land is largely empty. toward the bottom of the image is the coastline and the town of Grindavík along a small portion of the coast.
More than 100 active fires burned across the country in late-March 2024, including this blaze near the border of Oaxaca...
This image shows smoke billowing from one such fire near the border of neighboring states Oaxaca (west) and Chiapas (east) in southern Mexico. The OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9 acquired the image at about 10:30 a.m. local time (16:30 Universal Time) on March 27, 2024. The image is natural color (bands 4-3-2) overlaid with pixels from a false-color image to emphasize hot spots associated with the fire front.
Landsat satellites have begun regularly acquiring images of ice at the poles during the winter, with enlightening results. View the...
At the bottom of the mosaic, the Larsen C Ice Shelf is a uniform, cold (light blue) expanse. Under clear-sky conditions, flat snow and ice surfaces radiate heat to space, creating a thin, chilled layer of air that pools at the surface and contributes to its cold appearance. In places with more topography, even a calm wind will disrupt this layer and cause surface features to give off a warmer signal. In this way, thermal imagery can map topography in relatively fine detail.
Rectangular ponds for shrimp farming line the coast of northern Peru. View the full story
Green and white aquaculture ponds extend across the Tumbes River Delta shown in this image, acquired on March 14, 2024, by the OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9. The ponds on the west side of the delta are likely topped with white pond covers, providing some shade.
Meandering waterways distribute sediments across a foothill valley in Argentina. View the full story
The photo shows the city of Orán (lower-right) and a small section of Aniceto Arce (top), a Bolivian province that is surrounded by the Bermejo River and Río Grande de Tarija. The meandering rivers in this image are sourced in the Andes Mountains and generally flow southeast through valleys in the foothills—the region between the high mountains and plains. The Iruya River deposits particles of silt and clay as it flows into the valley centered in this image.
NASA scientists are part of an international effort to collect air quality data in Southeast Asia. View the full story
The satellite image shows a hazy day in Thailand during the region’s 2024 fire season. The image was captured by VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the Suomi NPP (National Polar-orbiting Partnership) satellite on March 16.
Drought and heat have fueled unusually high numbers of fires in the South American country during the first three months...
This image, acquired by MODIS on NASA’s Terra satellite, shows several large, smoky fires burning south of the Orinoco River on March 26, 2024. Brown areas in the northern part of the image are part of the Llanos, a mostly treeless savanna covered with seasonally flooded grasslands and cattle pastures. The green areas in the southern part of the image are rainforests that span the fringes of the Guiana Highlands, a plateau that covers the southern half of Venezuela.
Skies turned orange and snowy slopes were stained brown as Saharan dust reached Europe. View the full story
The MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image of dust enveloping the Iberian Peninsula on March 22. On that day, snowy slopes at a ski resort near Granada were tinged with brown from dust deposition and other areas saw “muddy” rain, according to news reports.
Sweltering temperatures led to power cuts and school closures in South Sudan. View the full story
The map above shows air temperatures across East Africa on March 18, 2024. The map was produced by combining satellite observations with temperatures predicted by a version of the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model, which uses meteorological observations and mathematical equations to represent physical processes in the atmosphere. Colors from white to red represent temperatures at about 2 meters (6.5 feet) above the ground at about 12:00 Universal Time. The darkest reds indicate temperatures of 45°C (113°F). Output from the GEOS model indicates that the highest temperature recorded in the region on March 18 was 45°C near the border of Sudan and South Sudan.
Sea ice at the top of the planet continued to shrink and thin in 2024, consistent with an ongoing 46-year...
The map above shows the ice extent on March 14, the day of the annual maximum. To determine extent, scientists project satellite observations of sea ice onto a grid and then add up the total area of each cell that is at least 15 percent ice-covered. The yellow outline shows the median sea ice extent for February from 1981 to 2010. A median is the middle value; that is, half of the extents were larger than the yellow line and half were smaller.
The large coral islands off the African coast are home to giant tortoises and unique birdlife. View the full story
Located more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) northwest of Madagascar and more than 600 kilometers (375 miles) east of mainland Africa, Aldabra is one of the coralline outer islands of the Seychelles. The OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9 captured this image of the remote atoll on June 24, 2022. Tides flow in and out of the lagoon through channels between the large perimeter islands. The land tops out at a mere 8 meters (26 feet) above sea level.
Smoke billowed from multiple wildfires in the eastern U.S., fueled by dry and windy weather. View the full story
On March 21, the Virginia Department of Forestry said that firefighters had responded to more than 100 wildfires in the previous 48 hours. The fires had burned more than 7,500 acres (3,000 hectares). The MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) sensor on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image of smoke streaming from the fires on that day.
Lights, snow, and clouds brighten this wintery scene of Earth’s northern latitudes. View the full story
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this photo of eastern Canada. The image was taken near the northernmost limit of the station’s inclined equatorial orbit, which tops out about 52 degrees north of the equator. The perspective includes a view of space station’s solar panels in the foreground, Earth’s horizon about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) away, and celestial objects far in the distance. Lights, snow, and clouds brighten the winter scene on Earth.
It’s not a forecast, but this map of historical cloud cover will tell you how often skies on April 8...
A potent storm pushed snowpack levels above normal across Colorado.View the full story
Recent data from the previously unstudied Ruki River in the Congo Basin shows that it carries a heavy load of...
The Arctic and North Atlantic oceans have seen an increasing number of days when precipitation falls as rain, not snow....
A Landsat satellite acquired this image of discolored water drifting from the active underwater volcano. View the full story
The image above, acquired on March 8 by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8, shows a plume of discolored water near the undersea volcano. The plume drifted north-northeast toward Nggatokae Island. Vangunu Island, also pictured, lies about 24 kilometers (15 miles) north of Kavachi, and Papua New Guinea is about 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the west.
An astronaut’s photograph reveals the myriad features of a remote glacier high in the Karakoram mountains of central Asia. View...
The image shows four smaller tributary glaciers flowing into the main Siachen Glacier. The many dark, parallel lines in the glacier and its tributaries are moraines, which give a sense of the southward flow of the glacier. The darkest and most prominent moraine results from the merging of moraines from the Teram Shehr Glacier and its neighbor immediately to the north. Early afternoon sunlight casts shadows from small cumulus clouds onto the glaciers’ surfaces.
Weeks of warmer-than-average ocean temperatures caused extensive bleaching in the world’s largest coral reef system. View the full story
A cycle of rapid advance and retreat at Sortebræ, a glacier in eastern Greenland, built pi-shaped tongues of ice before...
The storm dropped a substantial amount of rain as it moved across Mozambique. View the full story
Researchers are leveraging troves of data collected by animal-borne sensors to complement satellite observations, expand weather measurements, and better understand...
A volcano on Fernandina, an uninhabited island dense with wildlife, is lighting up the night sky with the glow of...
This wide-angle photo offers the feeling of looking out over the Persian Gulf from an altitude of about 250 miles....
The large reservoir in Catalonia shrank to 1 percent of capacity in March 2024. View the full story
Some of the world’s largest deposits of this useful metal lie in the high plains of the Central Andes. View...
Ranchers in the Texas Panhandle recently faced a fire that charred more than 1 million acres. View the full story
The Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite provides a new view of water on land, at the coast, and in...
Scientists’ annual checkup on Earth’s carbon cycle found that burning oil, coal, and natural gas is impeding progress to limit...
Huge understory fires are spreading throughout the state in northern Brazil as drought and heat turn the rainforest into tinder....
This city in southern Arizona is surrounded by mountains, national forest, and conservation areas. View the full story
Wetlands in Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary are used by millions of migrating birds. View the full story
The effects of a warm winter in the upper Midwest are evident in the lack of lake ice. View the...
The blaze near Quetzaltenango was one of several burning across the country. View the full story
New research shows that while some Antarctic ice shelves have been thinning since at least the 1970s, widespread thinning accelerated...
A distinct plume of suspended sediment is a persistent winter feature off China’s coast. View the full story
Lakes and lava flows fill the depression atop this geologically young stratovolcano in eastern Türkiye. View the full story
Scientists speculated about these holes for decades, but it’s now well understood that cavum clouds are caused by airplanes. View...
The future site of Indonesia’s new capital saw rapid change between 2022 and 2024. View the full story
Akará is only the third such storm recorded in the region since 2015. View the full story
Harriet Tubman preferred to navigate the woods and waterways of Maryland’s Eastern Shore on winter nights when guiding enslaved people...
The setting Sun illuminates the western faces of sand dunes across this low-lying basin in northwestern China. View the full...
The barrier island that protects the mouth of Mobile Bay has a history of shifting and merging with nearby islands....
Critical infrastructure is threatened as sinking land amplifies global sea level rise. View the full story
Refreshed by precipitation from an atmospheric river, a temporary lake in Death Valley is extending its stay. View the full...
An astronaut and satellite sensors captured eye-catching patterns in sea ice. View the full story
The mountain lake survived the catastrophic events surrounding the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens and gained a new shoreline...
For the third time since December 2023, fresh lava has flowed across parts of the Reykjanes peninsula. View the full...
A large stadium contributes to the nighttime illumination of Las Vegas, which hosts the Super Bowl for the first time...
Bright white water surfaces and cloud tops contrast with the darker landscape of this Caribbean island. View the full story
Heat, drought, and winds fueled wildland fires that raged into parts of Viña del Mar and Quilpué. View the full...
NASA’s PACE satellite lifted off from Florida and headed for orbit, from where it will observe microscopic organisms in Earth’s...
Torrential rain fell on southern parts of the state, the product of an intense atmospheric river. View the full story
Fueled by a summer heatwave, the blazes scorched entire neighborhoods in the city of Viña del Mar. View the full...
An analysis of satellite data found that most of the island’s glaciers have retreated significantly, with Zachariæ Isstrøm and Sermeq...
This coastal stretch of South Africa’s Western Cape province supports industry, fishing, farming, tourism, and a nature reserve. View the...
Hot, windy weather has fueled outbreaks of fire in South Africa’s Western Cape. View the full story
A moisture measurement tool known as OpenET is improving the way farmers, ranchers, and water resource managers steward one of...
This map shows evapotranspiration levels across Central California including the Bay Area. Darker blue can be seen in the Central Valley.
Once covered in palms and mangroves, about half of this wetland has been converted for aquaculture. View the full story
The towering volcano has been erupting for decades, with near constant gas emissions venting from the crater punctuated by bursts...
Sustained winds carried desert dust over the ocean, where it engulfed island groups and then streamed toward the United Kingdom....
Clouds trailing the remote island in the South Atlantic appeared brighter than usual because of volcanic aerosols. View the full...
The iconic volcano of Northern California is home to seven glaciers that become buried in a blanket of snow during...
The large Coast Range glacier is one of thousands in western Canada that have shrunk in recent decades as temperatures...
Located in northern Chile, one of the deepest open-pit mines in the world has transitioned underground to extract valuable metals....
Some parts of the peninsula rose up to 4 meters (13 feet), shifting the position of coastlines and leaving some...
More than a week of wintry weather left a band of snow from Mississippi to Maine. View the full story
Resting atop a shingled sandstone landscape, the Norwegian glacier has been in decline since the late 1990s. View the full...
Tectonic forces over millions of years have folded the region’s layers of colorful rock. Erosion has since exposed them. View...
The latest round of eruptions on the Reykjanes peninsula destroyed homes in the town of Grindavík. View the full story
Winter fog in Pakistan and northern India has reduced visibility on the ground and caused transportation challenges. View the full...
Dangerously cold temperatures lingered over large swaths of the country for several days in mid-January 2024. View the full story
Réunion and Mauritius, islands in the southwest Indian Ocean, were lashed by the basin’s strongest storm system so far in...
In Alaska, streams are turning orange as permafrost thaws. View the full story
Cool, upwelling water supports an array of marine life and draws the occasional filmmaker to the Bonney Coast region. View...
The populous Argentinian city lies along the Paraná River, an important waterway for trade and resource transportation. View the full...
What caused the year to be so hot? Here is a breakdown of the primary factors that scientists considered. View...
A sprawling low-pressure system swept across the eastern half of the U.S., delivering high winds, heavy rain and snow, and...
A blanket of morning fog in January made the Nile Delta look like a tuft of cotton. View the full...
In the aftermath of consecutive winter storms, rivers in central England overflowed their banks. View the full story
The burst of turquoise and tan hues in Alaskan waters is in stark contrast to the snowy shoreline. View the...
Infrastructure, aquaculture, and an artificial island are found along this coastal stretch of southwest India. View the full story
Seasonal melting produced striking hues atop the sea ice before it broke away from the coast. View the full story
Parallel rows of cumulus clouds streamed from icy domains out over open water. View the full story
Features in this northern British Columbia volcanic area draw their names from a few of our favorite wintry things. View...
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are uniquely positioned to capture striking photos of the Sun and Earth. View the...
The terrain near the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers is topographically varied compared to the relatively flat Midwest....
The highest point in the Indian Ocean, this 2-million-year-old volcano is rarely snowy. View the full story
The Antarctic island served as a winter base for early 20th century polar explorers. View the full story
People have long noticed that the waters around Cabo Frio are unusually cool. View the full story
In ancient Greek and Roman times, the lush emerald isle of Ireland was called out for its long frosty seasons....
The Alaskan stratovolcano has not come to life in thousands of years. View the full story
The name “icicle” frequently shows up in and around the Bavarian-inspired town of Leavenworth in Washington state. View the full...
The Labrador Current transports ice southward, where it melts in warmer open water. View the full story
The state’s balmy winter weather influenced the names of multiple central Florida communities. View the full story
Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee formed as a result of shifts in Earth’s surface. View the full story
An early summer heatwave contributed to the country’s already active fire season. View the full story
After weeks of warnings, a new fissure has opened on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwestern Iceland. View the full story
A spate of solar activity produced widespread auroras across Canada. View the full story
The array of turbines is an example of Uruguay’s rapid adoption of wind power. View the full story
Two years after the eruption of Cumbre Vieja in the Canary Islands, some roads have been reconstructed. View the full...
side-by-side image of the same region. roads and homes appear where the land was previously covered in black hardened rock from the lava flow.
After a hunting trip in 1883, young Theodore Roosevelt was drawn to the desolate beauty of Dakota Territory badlands. View...
Outline overlaid on satellite image of North Dakota of the South Unit of the "badlands" with visibly rocky terrain and white capped peaks and numerous craggy valleys, with the Little Missouri River meandering through the western region on the South Unit
Sea-faring vessels waited off the shores of one of Brazil’s busiest ports. View the full story
The waters of the Rio Grande exit the comparatively narrow mouth, spreading a tan color of sediment into the dark blue-green of the Atlantic Ocean, speckled with ships.
A high-intensity prescribed burn in south-central Utah will help restore the region’s aspen trees. It could also improve the lives...
A tree covered mountain in the distance, behind two near bushy pines shows large orange flames in the center of the image. smoke billows up into the sky and to the right blue sky occupies a much smaller area over the fire on the left with some distant cumulus clouds behind
The first storm of the Australian tropical cyclone season aimed for Port Douglas. View the full story
aerial of swirling white clouds centered over the coral sea off the coast of Port Douglass, Queensland Australia
Outbursts from Glacial Lake Missoula carved the Channeled Scablands in Washington state. View the full story
aerial image of rural Washington state show numerous darkened valleys with sprawling tributaries densely packed across a region dotted with circles and squares of different farmland
Both the Atlantic and eastern Pacific basins were unusually active in 2023—and some storms had unpredictable bouts of rapid intensification....
Four map views of the Gulf of Mexico near Florida highlight the intense rapid hurricane formation timeline by swirling temperature differential.
Stark contrasts between light and dark indicate the interface between urban and natural areas in the Greek capital. View the...
Aerial image of light illuminating Athens at night, a lone dark spot on the city indicates the Acropolis, but veins of light follow the streets out of the city and into other towns, illuminating the coastline faintly.
Aínos National Park on Greece’s largest Ionian island became a dark sky park in 2023. Read the full story
Aínos National Park on Greece’s largest Ionian island became a dark sky park in 2023.
The tropical cyclone caused widespread flooding and crop damage in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. View the full...
Ice cores and satellite images are helping preserve the history of a disappearing ice cap in the Peruvian Andes. View...
Snow lingered on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa after a storm brought copious precipitation to the island chain. View the...
side-by-side aerial views of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, mostly bare and brown, each with some snow at the peaks
A warm, moisture-laden weather system soaked western Washington and Oregon. View the full story
An atmospheric overlay on western North America showing high moisture, depicted in a blue-green swooping through prevailing dryer climate, depicted in tan to brown shades.
Anak Krakatau is a small, unimposing volcanic island between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. However, its frequent blasts...
Arial shot of three islands, the center - anak krakatau, billowing smoke emits from a red spot
Storms brought flooding to Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina in November 2023, continuing a trend of wet weather...
Storms brought flooding to Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina in November 2023, continuing a trend of wet weather in the region.
Water-carved canyons and wind-sculpted dunes adorn the desert landscape. View the full story
Water-carved canyons and wind-sculpted dunes adorn the desert landscape.
Erta Ale, in the East African Rift, is Ethiopia’s most active volcano. Read the full story
Erta Ale, in the East African Rift, is Ethiopia’s most active volcano.
Stuck on the seafloor for decades, Iceberg A-23A now freely drifts northward toward warmer, iceberg-destroying waters. Read the full story
Stuck on the seafloor for decades, Iceberg A-23A now freely drifts northward toward warmer, iceberg-destroying waters.
NASA research finds that a combination of windblown dust and human-caused particle pollution was associated with nearly 3 million premature...
NASA research finds that a combination of windblown dust and human-caused particle pollution was associated with nearly 3 million premature deaths in 2019.
The fiery and icy upper reaches of the Antarctic volcano pierced through a canopy of clouds. Read the full story
The fiery and icy upper reaches of the Antarctic volcano pierced through a canopy of clouds.
A winter storm plowed across several U.S. states after Thanksgiving. Read the full story
A winter storm plowed across several U.S. states after Thanksgiving.
The Alaskan city received record snowfall in November 2023. Read the full story
The Alaskan city received record snowfall in November 2023.
Fluid dynamics put on a spectacular show around Norway’s remote Bear Island. Read the full story
Fluid dynamics put on a spectacular show around Norway’s remote Bear Island.
An unexpected color palette reveals the features of an iconic glacial landscape in southeastern Alaska. Read the full story
An unexpected color palette reveals the features of an iconic glacial landscape in southeastern Alaska.
The causeway and its blocky “islands” off the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia make oil drilling possible in the region’s...
The causeway and its blocky “islands” off the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia make oil drilling possible in the region’s shallow waters.
Ice cores and satellite images are helping preserve the history of a disappearing ice cap in the Peruvian Andes. Read...
Ice cores and satellite images are helping preserve the history of a disappearing ice cap in the Peruvian Andes.
Heavy rainfall in the Horn of Africa submerged entire towns in floodwater. Read the full story
Heavy rainfall in the Horn of Africa submerged entire towns in floodwater.
Even with fewer fires than normal in fall 2023, poor air quality plagued the region. Read the full story
Even with fewer fires than normal in fall 2023, poor air quality plagued the region.
These freshwater tidal wetlands have been shaped by centuries of floods and the efforts to control them. Read the full...
These freshwater tidal wetlands have been shaped by centuries of floods and the efforts to control them.
A scientist spotted a jade hue in the sea ice fastened to the coast of East Antarctica. Read the full...
A scientist spotted a jade hue in the sea ice fastened to the coast of East Antarctica.
The white sands of Florida’s Emerald Coast beaches are primarily comprised of quartz grains from the southern Appalachian Mountains. Read...
The white sands of Florida’s Emerald Coast beaches are primarily comprised of quartz grains from the southern Appalachian Mountains.
Residents of the Australian opal-mining town of Coober Pedy beat the heat by living underground. Read the full story
Residents of the Australian opal-mining town of Coober Pedy beat the heat by living underground.
A wet winter in western states provided a short-term reprieve to the decades-long drought in the reservoir. Read the full...
A wet winter in western states provided a short-term reprieve to the decades-long drought in the reservoir.
The extent of the Iraqi city has increased in recent decades, alongside rising water levels in nearby wetlands. Read the...
The extent of the Iraqi city has increased in recent decades, alongside rising water levels in nearby wetlands.
Flanked by mountain ranges on three sides, the basin in northwestern China sees frequent dust storms. Read the full story
Flanked by mountain ranges on three sides, the basin in northwestern China sees frequent dust storms.
Curtains of colorful light danced across the sky after solar storms sent energized particles crashing into Earth’s upper atmosphere. Read...
Curtains of colorful light danced across the sky after solar storms sent energized particles crashing into Earth’s upper atmosphere.
The Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington is the oldest continually operating retirement home for military personnel in the United...
The Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington is the oldest continually operating retirement home for military personnel in the United States.
Ancient geologic processes created a Saharan landscape full of contrasts. Read the full story
Ancient geologic processes created a Saharan landscape full of contrasts.
The eastern side of the Wasatch Range in autumn displays abundant reds and oranges, followed by vibrant yellows. Read the...
The eastern side of the Wasatch Range in autumn displays abundant reds and oranges, followed by vibrant yellows.
Record rainfall associated with Hurricane Hilary in August 2023 created a large temporary lake in Death Valley. Read the full...
Record rainfall associated with Hurricane Hilary in August 2023 created a large temporary lake in Death Valley.
One branch of Alaska’s Columbia Glacier seems to have retreated as far as it can, while the other still has...
One branch of Alaska’s Columbia Glacier seems to have retreated as far as it can, while the other still has some distance to go.
Wind and rain from a powerful storm lashed Western Europe in early November, causing widespread flooding in central Italy. Read...
Wind and rain from a powerful storm lashed Western Europe in early November, causing widespread flooding in central Italy.
Heat and drought caused seasonal fires to flare up amidst rising rates of deforestation. Read the full story
Heat and drought caused seasonal fires to flare up amidst rising rates of deforestation.
Forests of maples and oaks show their brilliant autumn hues in northeast Ohio’s national park. Read the full story
Forests of maples and oaks show their brilliant autumn hues in northeast Ohio’s national park.
The Parinacota and Pomerape volcanoes rise like twins along the Chile-Bolivia border, but close inspection reveals distinct differences in their...
The Parinacota and Pomerape volcanoes rise like twins along the Chile-Bolivia border, but close inspection reveals distinct differences in their appearance.
Eurasia’s tallest active volcano spewed ash that drifted hundreds of kilometers. Read the full story
Eurasia’s tallest active volcano spewed ash that drifted hundreds of kilometers.
Researchers found that the depleted area of the ozone layer over the South Pole was slightly improved this year. Read...
Researchers found that the depleted area of the ozone layer over the South Pole was slightly improved this year.
Wind and rain from the ferocious hurricane damaged infrastructure and turned forests brown. Read the full story
Wind and rain from the ferocious hurricane damaged infrastructure and turned forests brown.
Satellite observations show that students of color in the U.S. attend public schools with higher concentrations of air pollution than...
Satellite observations show that students of color in the U.S. attend public schools with higher concentrations of air pollution than their white peers.
Past volcanic eruptions and salt deposits from present-day hot springs left this distinctive “face” in northern Chad. Read the full...
Past volcanic eruptions and salt deposits from present-day hot springs left this distinctive “face” in northern Chad.
Shifting rainfall patterns are projected to leave millions of people without consistent access to food in late 2023 and early...
Shifting rainfall patterns are projected to leave millions of people without consistent access to food in late 2023 and early 2024.
Despite their rusty color, these arteries of water in Bolivia and Madagascar are important for biodiversity. Read the full story
Despite their rusty color, these arteries of water in Bolivia and Madagascar are important for biodiversity.
Thousands of endemic plant species flourish in one of the planet’s hottest biodiversity hotspots. Read the full story
Thousands of endemic plant species flourish in one of the planet’s hottest biodiversity hotspots.
Homes were destroyed by blazes in eastern Australia, fueled by unusually hot and dry conditions. Read the full story
Homes were destroyed by blazes in eastern Australia, fueled by unusually hot and dry conditions.
Otis went from tropical storm to major hurricane in a matter of hours before barreling into Mexico’s Pacific Coast as...
Otis went from tropical storm to major hurricane in a matter of hours before barreling into Mexico’s Pacific Coast as a category 5 storm.
A new system that draws upon active fire data from satellites is making it easier for scientists to track the...
The storm threatens to bring heavy rains to Yemen and Oman. Read the full story
The storm threatens to bring heavy rains to Yemen and Oman.
Poor harvests stemming from a prolonged dry spell have exacerbated food insecurity in northeastern Uganda. Read the full story
Poor harvests stemming from a prolonged dry spell have exacerbated food insecurity in northeastern Uganda.
Oblique photographs can provide a unique perspective on the planet’s topographic highs, including Europe’s most active volcano. Read the full...
Oblique photographs can provide a unique perspective on the planet’s topographic highs, including Europe’s most active volcano.
Eruptions on Russia’s active Kamchatka Peninsula made for a dramatic display of steam, snow, and shadows. Read the full story
Eruptions on Russia’s active Kamchatka Peninsula made for a dramatic display of steam, snow, and shadows.
With an El Niño brewing in the Pacific, uncontrolled fires are burning beneath the canopy in some parts of the...
With an El Niño brewing in the Pacific, uncontrolled fires are burning beneath the canopy in some parts of the rainforest.
A storm brought wintry weather and the first significant snowfall of the season to the Rocky Mountains. Read the full...
A storm brought wintry weather and the first significant snowfall of the season to the Rocky Mountains.
The water level of the largest tributary of the Amazon River has hit a record low. Read the full story
The water level of the largest tributary of the Amazon River has hit a record low.
As the Moon crossed between the Sun and Earth during the 2023 annular eclipse, its shadow darkened skies across the...
As the Moon crossed between the Sun and Earth during the 2023 annular eclipse, its shadow darkened skies across the United States.
The seas around Florida, Cuba, and the Bahamas saw large accumulations of heat stress beginning in summer 2023, with implications...
The seas around Florida, Cuba, and the Bahamas saw large accumulations of heat stress beginning in summer 2023, with implications for the health of coral reefs.
The seas around Florida, Cuba, and the Bahamas saw large accumulations of heat stress beginning in summer 2023, with implications...
A patchwork of farmland along the Snake River abuts a flow of hardened lava. Read the full story
A patchwork of farmland along the Snake River abuts a flow of hardened lava.
The cultural and political hub of El Salvador lies along the Central American Volcanic Arc. Read the full story
The cultural and political hub of El Salvador lies along the Central American Volcanic Arc.
The sum of Earth's plants, on land and in the ocean, changes slightly from year to year as weather patterns...
The sum of Earth's plants, on land and in the ocean, changes slightly from year to year as weather patterns shift.
A warm, dry September set the stage for increased fire risk in Australia. Read the full story
A warm, dry September set the stage for increased fire risk in Australia.
Dry conditions brought on by El Niño likely intensified the 2023 fire season, following several years of relative quiet. Read...
Dry conditions brought on by El Niño likely intensified the 2023 fire season, following several years of relative quiet.
This animation highlights the density of black carbon particles—commonly called soot—in smoke as it moved across North America between September...
Lidia quickly strengthened from a tropical storm to a category 4 hurricane before making landfall near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Read...
Lidia quickly strengthened from a tropical storm to a category 4 hurricane before making landfall near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
The Alaskan tundra puts on a fleeting display of color before the snows fall and bears hibernate. Read the full...
The Alaskan tundra puts on a fleeting display of color before the snows fall and bears hibernate.
June, July, and August were 0.23°C (0.41°F) warmer than any other summer in NASA’s record. Read the full story
June, July, and August were 0.23°C (0.41°F) warmer than any other summer in NASA’s record.
Strong tides create laminar and turbulent flow patterns in waters off far eastern Russia. Read the full story
Strong tides create laminar and turbulent flow patterns in waters off far eastern Russia.
Intertidal flats, mangroves, and artificial islands surround the populous capital city of the United Arab Emirates. Read the full story
Intertidal flats, mangroves, and artificial islands surround the populous capital city of the United Arab Emirates.
Wildland fires usually wind down in autumn, but this year they continued to rage into October. Read the full story
Wildland fires usually wind down in autumn, but this year they continued to rage into October.
The powerful storm intensified as it tracked toward the island’s southern tip. Read the full story
The powerful storm intensified as it tracked toward the island’s southern tip.
An influx of nutrients in recent decades has contributed to the proliferation of algae in the large Canadian lake. Read...
An influx of nutrients in recent decades has contributed to the proliferation of algae in the large Canadian lake.
Dry conditions brought on by El Niño likely intensified the 2023 fire season, following several years of relative quiet. Read...
Dry conditions brought on by El Niño likely intensified the 2023 fire season, following several years of relative quiet.
An oblique-angle photo taken from above the Middle East captures the Moon peeking over Earth’s atmospheric limb. Read the full...
An oblique-angle photo taken from above the Middle East captures the Moon peeking over Earth’s atmospheric limb.
Indigenous people are protecting carbon-rich forests in South America, and satellites are helping. Read the full story
Indigenous people are protecting carbon-rich forests in South America, and satellites are helping.
A few years after a fresh influx of water raised its levels, the large lake has nearly gone dry. Read...
A few years after a fresh influx of water raised its levels, the large lake has nearly gone dry.
Two decades of satellite measurements show that the sea surface is shading toward green. Read the full story
Two decades of satellite measurements show that the sea surface is shading toward green.
In September, low water levels made it more challenging to ship goods down the river and allowed a wedge of...
In September, low water levels made it more challenging to ship goods down the river and allowed a wedge of saltwater to move upstream.
After passing the Antarctic Peninsula, Iceberg D-30A grazed the much smaller Clarence Island, spun around, and drifted north. Read the...
After passing the Antarctic Peninsula, Iceberg D-30A grazed the much smaller Clarence Island, spun around, and drifted north.
Satellite data shows that Arctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent on September 19, 2023. Read the full...
Satellite data shows that Arctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent on September 19, 2023.
Dust from the ephemeral Hamun wetlands streamed over parts of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in September. Read the full story
Dust from the ephemeral Hamun wetlands streamed over parts of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in September.
Satellite data shows that Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest maximum extent on record on September 10, 2023. Read the...
Satellite data shows that Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest maximum extent on record on September 10, 2023.
Cities and towns darkened after a cyclone unleashed torrential flooding along the country’s coast. Read the full story
Cities and towns darkened after a cyclone unleashed torrential flooding along the country’s coast.
Scientists have some ideas about what might have caused a thin arc that spanned a fjord in Western Greenland. Read...
Scientists have some ideas about what might have caused a thin arc that spanned a fjord in Western Greenland.
Swirls of phytoplankton and sediment brightened Vancouver Island’s coastal waters in July 2023.
Swirls of phytoplankton and sediment brightened Vancouver Island’s coastal waters in July 2023.
Following a slow start to the fire season, several blazes burned across the western U.S. in early August.
Following a slow start to the fire season, several blazes burned across the western U.S. in early August.
Lava is once again spilling from the volcano in southwest Iceland, only this time it is igniting moss fires. Read...
Lava is once again spilling from the volcano in southwest Iceland, only this time it is igniting moss fires
False-color images from Channel Country in the Australian Outback reveal a barren landscape transformed.
Flooding in the Australian Outback.
Ice breaking up off the Russian coast whirled at the whims of winds and currents.
Ice breaking up off the Russian coast.
Prolonged drought in Kansas set the stage for what may be one of the state’s smallest wheat harvests in decades.
A map of drought across the continental United States.
A complex system of dunes displays an array of patterns in the Rub’ al Khali sand sea in southeast Saudi...
A complex system of dunes in Saudi Arabia's Rub’ al Khali sand sea.
Protecting carbon stored in ecosystems could be a powerful tool in tackling climate change.
In Germany's smallest national park, European beech trees are perched atop precipitous chalk cliffs.
Infrastructure new and old glows across the Czech Republic's capital city.