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Earth Observatory Image of the Day

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

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.