I have sailed with my share of compelling characters since I began ocean research, and perhaps it is fitting that while we study ocean color aboard the R/V Falkor, I have had the pleasure of getting ...

Update on February 5, 2025: This Landsat image shows the Zavaritskogo (also called Zavaritskii) caldera in the Kuril Archipelago, between northern Japan and Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.

The prevention of Rift Valley fever in Kenya in 2016 was a success story decades in the making. Twenty years ago, predicting a disease outbreak seemed like the realm of science fiction.But today, ...

The night side of Earth twinkles with light. The first thing to stand out is the cities. “Nothing tells us more about the spread of humans across the Earth than city lights,” asserts Chris Elvidge, a ...

Casey is one of the first scientists to use satellite data to distinguish between the different types of debris—ranging from fine-grained aerosols, to bits of volcanic ash, to the large rocks and ...

From their home on the International Space Station, astronauts have a view unlike anything most of us will ever see. Over 20 years, they have shot millions of photographs of Earth, and it is not just ...

Sea level rise is not just an academic concern for NASA satellites and scientists. With two-thirds of its infrastructure and assets situated on the coast, the agency has first-hand experience with the ...

Chances are, you have a camera near you as you read this—in the smart phone in your pocket or on the tablet or computer you’re using to view this page. Some of you might have a 35 mm film or digital ...

The Blue Marble. Using a collection of satellite images and data, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of Earth’s land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a ...

The Earth Observatory shares images and stories about the environment, Earth systems, and climate that emerge from NASA research, satellite missions, and models.

For a chemical compound that shows up nearly everywhere on the planet, methane still surprises us. It is one of the most potent greenhouse gases, and yet the reasons for why and where it shows up are ...

Satellite images are like maps: they are full of useful and interesting information, provided you have a key. They can show us how much a city has changed, how well our crops are growing, where a fire ...