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In honor of our 20th anniversary, we offer a selection of some of the most beautiful, newsworthy, interesting, and scientifically important images from the past 20 years — one for each day of the calendar year.
The typhoon grew from a tropical storm to a category 5 storm in less than a day.
Farmers use a number of different methods to irrigate crops, and some of them result in pretty interesting shapes.
Published Oct 16, 2019 in EO Kids
Trails up Mount Whitney and across Forester Pass give hikers access high into the California mountain range.
Published Oct 11, 2019
A broad region could experience destructive winds as the typhoon approaches land.
Published Oct 11, 2019Image of the Day Atmosphere Land Water Severe Storms Human Presence
A small volcano erupted in the Shenandoah Valley 48 million years ago.
Published Oct 11, 2019
Yellow flowers brighten the landscape of southwestern Russia.
Published Oct 10, 2019
The Dewey Soper Bird Sanctuary in Canada is marked by its diverse terrain and large number of feathery inhabitants.
Published Oct 10, 2019
Orange and yellow foliage paint the banks of this river in the Russian Far East.
Published Oct 8, 2019
Assateague, Chincoteague, and Wallops provide a rare example of overlapping barrier islands. All of them are constantly in motion.
Published Oct 8, 2019
Industrialization has brought incredible societal advances and difficult pollution problems. From space, we can see skies clearing in some regions and darkening in others. The thin blue line of our atmosphere is still quite vulnerable.
Published Jun 24, 2014
Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what we are looking at, where it is, and why it is interesting.
Published Oct 8, 2019 in Earth Matters
2019 has brought exceptional rain to some areas, and the monsoon is retreating later than any season in recent memory.
Published Oct 7, 2019Image of the Day Land Water Drought Floods Severe Storms Human Presence Remote Sensing Temperature Extremes
Fires raged in Bolivia’s lowlands throughout much of August and September.
Published Oct 4, 2019
During morning and evening hours, dense smoke often settles in low-lying areas and becomes trapped due to temperature inversions.
Published Oct 4, 2019
From October 15 to November 15, students and citizen scientists can participate in a campaign to study clouds.
Published Oct 4, 2019 in Earth Matters
Airborne aerosols can cause or prevent cloud formation and harm human health. These maps depict aerosol concentrations in the air based on how the tiny particles reflect or absorb visible and infrared light.
The ice shelf in East Antarctica has spawned its first major iceberg in more than half a century.
Published Oct 3, 2019
Satellites can track Noctiluca scintillans, a type of phytoplankton that produce a bioluminescent glow at night.
Published Oct 3, 2019
Though it has weakened since reaching category 5 strength, the hurricane is still bringing heavy rain and strong winds to the northeast Atlantic.
Published Oct 2, 2019
The fast-changing glacier is threatening a popular hiking area in the western Alps.
Published Oct 1, 2019
An unusually heavy snowfall across the northern Rockies brought winter weather barely a week into autumn.
Published Oct 1, 2019
Heavy winter and spring snowfall provided much-needed meltwater, but the effects of long-term drought mean the lake is nowhere near its highs from the 1980s and 90s.
Published Sep 30, 2019
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a different part of the world? What would the weather be like? What kinds of animals would you see? Which plants live there? By investigating these questions, you are learning about biomes.
Published Oct 5, 2000
We have embarked on a search for our “home” for the next year—an ice floe which has just the right characteristics of size, thickness, and representativeness to support the huge suite of scientific instruments and projects that comprise MOSAiC.
Published Sep 30, 2019 in Notes From the Field
Fantastic dunes stand alongside one of the world’s largest internally draining river systems.
Published Sep 27, 2019
In spite of its clear significance to the planet, the expansive region is a complex and challenging place for remote sensing scientists to study.
Published Sep 26, 2019
In the past three decades, Quito’s urban area has more than quadrupled.
Published Sep 26, 2019
Fierce wind picked up and carried huge plumes of sand and dust westward toward the Atlantic Ocean.
Published Sep 25, 2019
The BITSE team tested the door on their instrument, which was almost ready for its balloon flight to the top of the sky.
Published Sep 25, 2019 in Notes From the Field
The storm reached the coast of the Arabian Peninsula with maximum winds between 120-130 kilometers per hour.
Published Sep 24, 2019
Satellite images of Earth at night have been a curiosity for the public and a tool of fundamental research for at least 25 years. They have provided a broad, beautiful picture, showing how humans have shaped the planet and lit up the darkness.
Published Apr 12, 2017
The long-term trend for Arctic sea ice extent has been definitively downward.
Published Sep 23, 2019
The waters around Newfoundland have been teeming with phytoplankton since the beginning of September.
Published Sep 20, 2019
Summer snowmelt along the flank of Greenland’s Humboldt Glacier exposes layers of ice from ancient climate periods.
Published Sep 20, 2019
Parts of Houston and Beaumont are underwater after the remnants of Tropical Storm Imelda moved through the area.
Published Sep 20, 2019Image of the Day Land Water Floods Severe Storms Human Presence Remote Sensing
The most recent balloon launch marks the fifth so far this year from Fort Sumner.
Published Sep 20, 2019 in Notes From the Field
NASA has a unique vantage point for observing the beauty and wonder of Earth and for making sense of it. The images in this book tell a story of a 4.5-billion-year-old planet where there is always something new to see.
Published Aug 28, 2019
These maps depict how much hotter or cooler an ocean basin was compared to the long-term average. Temperature anomalies can indicate changes in ocean circulation or the arrival of patterns like El Niño and La Niña.
These maps show the average amount of water vapor in a column of atmosphere by month. Water vapor is the key precursor for rain and snow and one of the most important greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
There is no award for completing the hike from Mexico to Canada through the western United States. But it is clear from the ground and space that the journey through 48 wilderness areas and demanding terrain will change you.
Published Aug 1, 2019
Swirling white clouds, deep blue oceans, and multicolored landscapes come to life on the pages of NASA’s new photo essay Earth, a collection of dramatic images captured by satellites.
Published Jun 4, 2019
Our world is constantly changing. We have evolved with it.
Published May 7, 2019
Ocean temperatures can influence weather, such as hurricane formation, and climate patterns, such as El Niño. These maps show the temperature at the surface of the world’s seas and oceans.
Pine Island Glacier is one of the fastest-retreating glaciers in Antarctica. This timeline highlights the most notable calving events of the past two decades.
Published Apr 9, 2019
12 months of high-resolution global true color satellite imagery.
Published Oct 13, 2005
Greenness is an important indicator of health for forests, grasslands, and farms. The greenness of a landscape, or vegetation index, depends on the number and type of plants, how leafy they are, and how healthy they are.
