The Great Barrier Reef has undergone two severe bleaching events in successive years. This has been caused by the warming of the oceans due to climate change.
satellite imagery
How This Remote Island Inhabited by Polar Bears Became Known as Landsat Island
Discovered in 1976 in imagery captured by Landsat 1, Landsat Island (60° 10′ 37″N, 64° 02′ 30″W) is solely populated by polar bears.
View the Human Footprint on this Rotating Globe
View the global human footprint map developed from 180,000 satellite images.
Geo Quiz: Name the Human Activity Visible from Space
This geography quiz features ten satellite images each showing an anthropogenic activity. Can you figure out what the human activity shown on each image is?
Match Scribbles to Features on the Earth
Land Lines is an experimental online tool that matches drawn gestures on the screen with landforms extracted from satellite imagery.
Swipe Through Satellite Data to Help Map Vulnerable Populations
MapSwipe and its team of digital volunteers utilize the abundance of smart phone technology to gather more information on natural disasters and the impact they have on people, cities, and countries around the world.
This Interferogram Shows Ground Displacement in Italy as a Result of the Recent Earthquake
The European Space Agency posted an interferogram showing ground displacement as a result of the recent earthquake in Italy.
Relief Inversion
When looking at aerial and satellite imagery, telling the difference between a canyon and a mountain can sometimes be tricky due to an optical illusion known as relief inversion.
How Many Lakes are there in the World?
Counting the number of lakes in the world until recently was more of a guessing game than an exact science. A recently study published in Geophysical Research Letters used satellite data to remotely sense the number of lakes larger than 0.002 square kilometers. An automated algorithm called GWEM (GeoCoverTM Water […]
Borders that are Visible on Satellite Imagery
The differing effects of one country’s activities as opposed to its neighbors can be so dramatic that the results are visible from space, especially through the lens of a satellite. Listed here are international borders that are visible on satellite imagery. Forestation, agricultural practices, electrical usage at night, and water […]
Rud-e-Gaz and Rud-e-Hara Wetlands, Iran
This satellite image captured of southern Iran shows what an arid and inhospitable area most of this region is.
Tournament Earth: Vote For your Favorite Image of the Earth
Thirty-two have been called, but which will be chosen? NASA’s Earth Observatory is hosting the second annual Tournament: Earth, a reader-driven competition to choose the previous year’s top NASA image of our planet. The tournament starts March 3 and ends April 7, with five rounds of voting spread across five […]