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Earth Observatory Image of the Day

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

A subtle arc, formed by the bending of light through high-altitude ice crystals, cradles the Moon above the darkened Earth.

The bottom of the image is black, a horizontal layer of color is seen in the image center. The color, from bottom up is red and orange, then white, giving way to a wide light blue color that fades into the black of space. The orange is labeled troposphere, white stratosphere, and blue upper atmosphere. The moon is also visible above the image center and includes a labeled halo around the bottom right edge of the moon.

As wildland fires raged in the American West, NASA airborne technology was there to image it in incredible detail.

side-by-side images of the same region. On the left is Monroe and Richfield in the valley with mountainous terrain and smoke on the right. The right image is shown in false color corresponding to the infrared reading which shows the mountain peaks in shades of orange due to smoldering fire. at the right edge of the smouldering area is turns to bright yellow where there is active fire.

One of the most active volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula is erupting yet again.

A dark brown to gray plume of smoke emanates from Klyuchevskaya Sopka at the center of this image on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The plume streams due East toward the Pacific Ocean, visible, but partially obstructed by clouds along the right side of the image.

Data provided by the water satellite are helping to improve tsunami forecast models.

The Kamchatka Peninsula descends from the top of the image and a chain of islands arc off to the center left edge, separating the sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific ocean, all depicted in grayscale. The 8.8 magnitude earthquake epicenter from July 29 is marked and a red arc emanates from the epicenter. the KA band radar interferometer and Nadir Altimeter of SWOT's data collection path are superimposed over the tsunami arc.

The remote and rugged landscape in central Colorado is known for outdoor recreation by day and exceptional stargazing by night.

An orange outline frames in Browns Canyon National Monument which encompasses craggy dark brown landscape. Ruby Mountain is labeled in the upper left corner of the monument, and Arkansas river meets the border in that same area.

The fast-growing blaze charred more than 100,000 acres in the span of a week.

Smoke emanates from the hills inland of and between coastal towns San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria. The smoke travels inland over the California Valley , covered in farmed fields and surrounded by arid terrain.

Forests play a key role in filtering the waters of a reservoir in central Massachusetts that’s home to submerged towns...

vertical stretched streaks of blue make up the Quabbin Reservoir in the surrounding green foliage of Massachusetts. Mount Zion is in the midst of the reservoir along the right side. Walker Hill is on the edge of the reservoir just below Mount Zion and the Dana Center is on the edge of the upper rightmost branch of the reservoir.

A long-exposure photo taken from low Earth orbit captured the brilliant illumination coming from airglow, lightning, and stars.

Two layers of Airglow are visible above the Earth's surface, one near the surface and another after a gap of dark space, less bright than the first. Star trails are visible in the dark of space above the Earth's curve.

Arctic waters near Norway’s Bear Island teemed with tiny plant-like organisms that painted the seas turquoise-blue and green.

A blanket of clouds obscures the Ocean on either side of Bear Island. The ocean around Bear Island has swirls of teal and seafoam in the otherwise dark blue ocean.

The Aude fire rapidly burned around 16,000 hectares in August 2025, becoming the country’s largest fire since 1949.

The landscape of France and Spain occupies the upper and left portion of the image, with Spain at the bottom of the image. The landscape is a mix of green foliage and yellowish brown, at the edge of where these two colors meet a plume of smoke emanates and reaches toward the rich blue of the Mediterranean Sea, occupying the lower right of the image.

A short-lived storm dropped some of the largest accumulations in decades on Australia’s Northern Tablelands.

White snowy landscape of New South Wales, including Walcha and Woolbrook are partially obscured by white puffy clouds.

Skies turned orange across the city of Ica as winds, locally known as Paracas winds, lofted dust from the coastal...

The deep blue of the Pacific Ocean is visible in the lower left corner. A thick layer of clouds and dust running from the upper left to the lower right separate the ocean from the land in the image. The dust is more beige in color than the white clouds and is on the landward side of the image. Ica is labeled, obscured by the cloud of dust. The deep brown mountainous landscape of Peru is visible in the upper right.

Iceberg A-23A continued to lose sizable pieces of ice during the 2025 austral winter, but it remained the planet’s largest...

The black ocean waters are largely obstructed by cloud cover in this image, however the bright white snow covering South Georgia is visible in the upper left. Iceberg A-23A is also visible in the lower right, with A-23D floating above it and A-23E barely separated to the left of it.

The lake in northwestern Utah displays striking red and green waters that contrast with the region’s surrounding desert, salt flats,...

The Wasatch Range of mountains, covered in a deep green that becomes gradually more sage as it blends with the beige valleys below, span horizontally across the top of the image. Below that is Salt Lake City, nestled just above the Great Salt Lake. Below that is the Great Salt Lake Desert, which includes the Bonneville Salt Flats, all of which is white to off white. To the right is Great Basin National Park amid the gray brown dusty landscape. In the lower left are the Craters of the Moon and the Snake River Plain. The landscape in this portion of the image appears more true brown than the gray-brown of the lower right.

The outlet of Berg Lake, dammed by the Steller Glacier in Alaska, has been reconfigured after decades of ice retreat.

The wide Steller glacier descends from the top of the image and turns toward the left side of the image, terminating into multiple lakes. the land surrounding these lakes is green with foliage. Berg Lake is toward the top of the image with Starodubtsov Lake being the leftmost, showing a stream exiting it to the left edge of the image. Like Ivanov and Lake Roselius are on the edge of the glacier ice toward the bottom of the image, divided by a minor ridge., but connected toward the ice.

Glacial retreat in central Iceland has uncovered an undulating topography riddled with colorful bodies of water.

The Múlajökull glacier appears white and dominates the image flowing from the upper right to toward the lower right. There are other snow filled valleys in the upper left and the lower right is filled with reflective puddles between labeled Drumlins and in an arc beyond the edge of the glacier is the Moraine, where rock had previously been pushed by the glacier. Streams meander away from the glacier in multiple directions.

The waterway in Manitoba flows from the middle out, connecting two rivers bound for Hudson Bay.

The Echimamish River flows horizontally across this image. At the image center a painted stone portage is labeled, from which, the water on the left side of the river is considerably more narrow that on the right. The surrounding landscape is a mix of green shades with sporadic lakes.

That’s a key question for many farmers, and new research may make it easier to develop growing season plans.

An image of cropland surrounding Marysville, just below and right of center, show fields color coded according to what crop is planted. A green field, indicating soybean, is highlighted as a crop change from 2018 to 2019 in the lower left. Up and right from there is an orange field, indicating winter wheat, is another crop rotation highlight

Located on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, the peak’s lofty altitude and chilly latitude help it hang onto snow and glaciers all...

The image shows the volcano, the image is dominated by the dark tan features of a volcanic summit, at the base in the upper left and lower right, the tan gives way to deep green foliage. The vulkannaya river is highlighted at the bottom of the image. White snow is smattered across the volcano ridges and valleys. The craters at the top are snow covered and there is a golden colored soil labeled fumarole deposit? A geothermal power plant is labeled in the valley in the upper left.

A maze of islands, reefs, and rugged coastline creates dazzling patterns in ocean waters near King Sound in Western Australia,...

in the light blue Indian Ocean there is a stretched smattering of islands, diagonally toward the upper left, labeled the Buccaneer Archipelago. Hidden island is near the image center and the Koolan Island is at the Northmost end of the region. Ther Gerald peninsula stretches toward the Indian ocean in the lower center. The Yampi Peninsula is the main portion of land in this image, it and the islands are all a light brown shade with some small smatterings of vegitation along the coastlines, particularly where there are valleys.

The latest in a string of episodic eruptions produced voluminous fiery flows at the Hawaiian volcano’s summit.

a small amount of land appears in the upper left , but is mostly obscured by cloud and smoke. The very center of the image is bright orange, an infrared signature of the heat of the volcano on the island of Hawai'i. Down and to the left of the infrared signature a particularly vibrant white cloud is labeled as a plume.

Well-wishers in Hawaii welcomed the astronauts on July 26, 1969, after they landed on the Moon, splashed down in the...

The image features Pearl Harbor, an expansive inland coastline with peninsulas and Ford island within it, resides behind the coastal inlet. Near the image center, just below Ford Island, is Join Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, to the right of which is Bravo Pier. This section of the imaged area is densely built up with white top buildings. in the lower right portion of the image a long stretch of Tarmac appears to be the runway of Hickam Air Force Base. The image is filled with densely built home and business structures, with sporadic patches of deep green foliage.

An explosion in the numbers of cyanobacteria transformed the Baltic Sea into a swirling canvas of green in summer 2025.

Swirling shades of green are seen in what is labeled Baltic Sea. A small island appears in the lower right and some thin string of islands are seen in the upper left corner.

Now a flat and dusty desert playa, Oregon’s Alvord Desert once held an expansive lake that was the source of...

The Alvord Desert centers in the image, bright white and low lying compared to the surrounding landscape. To the upper left is Steens Mountain, the peaks are covered in white snow, but the valleys sprawling away are covered in a deep green foliage. There is more deep green foliage along the left side of the Alvord Desert, just above Alvord lake at the bottom left and just above the low point of Alvord Desert. The surrounding land is a neutral brown with Big sand gap on the right edge of the Desert. Sporadic white tone earth is spread across the region to the right of Big Sand Gap and another bright white area is labeled Coyote Lake.

Decades of satellite observations show that the aquifers in the southern part of the state are ailing.

This map of the Southwestern United States in grayscale with an overlay of the groundwater of 2024 compared to 2015 shows that the whole Colorado river basin has lost water levels. The scale goes up to 12 millimeters, represented in red shades. The most loss is 12 millimeters and is near black. Lake Havasu City and southeast of Tuscon both show up as having 12mm less water and the least loss is in Utah at about 4 millimeters.

The volcano’s long history of eruptions has influenced eastern Sicily’s physical topography as well as how people interact with the...

Mount Etna centers in the image with the blue sea bordering the right side of the image. A plume emanates from the center of the mountain and streams to the bottom right near the town of Catania. Multiple cones lead away from the Caldera in a straight line down and to the left.

Snow infrequently falls in the high plains of northern Chile. And when it does, it doesn’t last for long.

The image shows the brown arid landscape of the West coast of South America covered in a bright blue snow, the near black Pacific Ocean is visible on the left. To the right the region appears bright green with a light blue region in the upper right labeled fog.

Amid scorching heat and low humidity, the Green and Butler fires have burned tens of thousands of acres and choked...

Wildfire smoke emanates from the top of the image where the land is covered in more foliage, just right of Shasta Lake. The smoke spreads southward toward Redding, Anderson and the lower Sacramento River which have a more arid brown landscape.

NASA airborne technology revealed the progression of a controlled fire at Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield.

A grid of eight images over time span 11:23 am EDT to 2:19 pm EDT. initially there is a green landscape with an orange slim boundary along the right edge of the area. By the fourth image in the series the land is mostly covered in orange and darkened areas indicating where the fire has been and is currently burning. By the last image there are a few slightly orange specs and small stretches of foliage that did not burn, but the majority of the region is left dark brown as newly burned areas.

Two lightning-ignited fires near the Grand Canyon became large and destructive in July 2025.

Just inside the northern border as well as north of the border of the Grand Canyon National Park, there are plumes of white smoke emanating from the dusty tan landscape. The parks boundaries are outlined in orange and stretch from the center of the image to the left, following the path of the river. The upper fire is the white sage fire, and the one on the northern border of the park is labeled as the dragon bravo fire.

In early July 2025, around halfway through the island’s annual melting season, blue meltwater ponds dotted the western side of...

Coastal land frames the left of the image with channels of water and the Nordenskiöld Glacier in the upper left portion of the image. To the right is slightly darkened ice, labeled as dirty, and at the right edge of the image bright white ice is speckled with light blue melt ponds, many with little streams attached.

Colorful salt ponds, rich mineral brines, and dust storm defenses meet on the Tibetan Plateau.

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The lake in Quebec drained suddenly in spring 2025, sending a wide channel of sediment-laden water through the forest.

tbd

An explosive eruption sent a kilometers-high column of volcanic material over Indonesia.

Laki-Laki is labeled at the right end of the horizontally oriented stretched Flores Island. Surrounded by deep blue waters, the Flores sea above and the Savu Sea below. Another island, Sumba, is visible in the lower left corner of the image. The view of rich green foliage of Flores island is partially obstructed by a near white ash cloud streaming from Laki-laki

In the upper left of center of the image a meteor crater is labeled below route 40. Sunset Mountains center in the image and the Anderson Mesa occupies the lower left edge of the image, darker in color than the yellow landscape that dominates the image.

February 24, 2024

in the light brown dusty landscape is a near white spot surrounded in by pale green. This is zoomed in on in a pop out box and labeled Luna impact crater. More foliage appears in the lower left of the image in a gridded pattern.

A landscape covered in green foliage centers a ring of lakes, the largest of which is in the lower left and labeled Silijan. Towns of Rattvik, Leksand and Mora reside at the edges of the lake. Other lakes in the image, clockwise from Silijan are Orsa, Skattungen and Ljugaren.

The optical phenomenon revealed features on and below the Peruvian lake’s surface, such as wind patterns, natural surface films, and...

Lake Titicaca in this image appears shades of silver due to the sunglint. Amantani Island is in the upper right, a light brown color, Capachica Peninsula is just left of center at the top of the image. Just below the image center is a long island reaching near the bottom of the image. To the left of that island internal waves are labeled as well as a boat wake on a perpendicular trajector from the island to the main land along the left border.

October 8, 2021

Amid forested landscape that occupies the majority of the image, including the entirety of the upper left to the center of the image, is a crescent shaped ridge labeled the Yilan crater. The Balan river is labeled along the right edge of the image in the upper portion and the surrounding land appears to be segmented into farmed pale green fields. The land along the bottom of the image also consists of many divided strips, though of grays browns and near white colors.

The world’s oldest and largest known impact structure shows some of the most extreme deformation conditions known on Earth.

the beige colored landscape is interrupted by an arc of elevated craggy land that is darker in color labeled the Vredefort dome. The Vaal River runs vertically through the this feature as a dark crack on the landscape. Vredefort and the town of Parys are in the lower left from the dome, the latter along the river. Another town is visible in the top right labeled potchefstroom