With hurricane season underway, NASA is gearing up to produce cutting-edge research to bolster the nation’s readiness and response to severe weather.
Category: Earth
NASA Sensor on Space Station Eyes Contamination off California Coast
Proof-of-concept results from the mouth of the Tijuana River in San Diego County show how an instrument called EMIT could aid wastewater detection. An instrument built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to map minerals on Earth is now revealing clues about water quality. A recent study found that EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) […]
Central Brazil Cerrado
On May 19, 2025, Landsat 9 captured this image of the Serra de Caldas in the state of Goiás, Brazil. The oval plateau is covered by a biologically rich savanna and grassland ecosystem called Cerrado. The Cerrado covers about one-fifth of Brazil’s land area and represents the second-largest biome in South America behind the Amazon. These lands […]
NASA Earth Scientist Elected to National Academy of Sciences
Earth scientist Compton J. Tucker has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences for his work creating innovative tools to track the planet’s changing vegetation from space. It’s research that has spanned nearly 50 years at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he is a visiting scientist after retiring in March. […]
NASA’s PACE Mission Reveals a Year of Terrestrial Data on Plant Health
A lot can change in a year for Earth’s forests and vegetation, as springtime and rainy seasons can bring new growth, while cooling temperatures and dry weather can bring a dieback of those green colors. And now, a novel type of NASA visualization illustrates those changes in a full complement of colors as seen from […]
NASA Satellite Images Could Provide Early Volcano Warnings
Scientists know that changing tree leaves can indicate when a nearby volcano is becoming more active and might erupt. In a new collaboration between NASA and the Smithsonian Institution, scientists now believe they can detect these changes from space. As volcanic magma ascends through the Earth’s crust, it releases carbon dioxide and other gases which […]
Lightning in Southeast Asia
A flash of lightning shines brighter than the lights of nearby cities in this Oct. 29, 2024, image taken by astronaut Don Pettit while aboard the International Space Station. At the time of this photograph, little to no moonlight illuminated the scene. This allows astronauts to see and photograph a variety of light sources with […]
NASA Data Helps Map Tiny Plankton That Feed Giant Right Whales
In the waters off New England, one of Earth’s rarest mammals swims slowly, mouth agape. The North Atlantic right whale filters clouds of tiny reddish zooplankton — called Calanus finmarchicus — from the sea. These zooplankton, no bigger than grains of rice, are the whale’s lifeline. Only about 370 of these massive creatures remain. For […]
NASA Airborne Sensor’s Wildfire Data Helps Firefighters Take Action
Data from the AVIRIS-3 sensor was recently used to create detailed fire maps in minutes, enabling firefighters in Alabama to limit the spread of wildfires and save buildings. A NASA sensor recently brought a new approach to battling wildfire, providing real-time data that helped firefighters in the field contain a blaze in Alabama. Called AVIRIS-3, […]
Sunshine on Earth
The Sun’s glint beams off a partly cloudy Atlantic Ocean just after sunrise as the International Space Station orbited 263 miles above on March 5, 2025. The space station serves as a unique platform for observing Earth with both hands-on and automated equipment. Station crew members have produced hundreds of thousands of images, recording phenomena […]