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Earth Observatory Image of the Day

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

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.