{ "count": 62, "next": null, "previous": null, "results": [ { "id": 31103, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/31103/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2020-02-12T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "2013 Rim Fire", "description": "Rim Fire progression || rimfire_mantage_print.jpg (1024x576) [66.3 KB] || rimfire_mantage.jpg (3840x2160) [1.2 MB] || rimfire_mantage_searchweb.png (320x180) [57.9 KB] || rimfire_mantage_thm.png (80x40) [4.6 KB] || ", "hits": 23 }, { "id": 31107, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/31107/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2020-02-12T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Moon Phases in the Persian Gulf", "description": "Phases of the moon and what they reveal || moon-phases-persian-gulf_print.jpg (1024x576) [105.2 KB] || moon-phases-persian-gulf.png (3840x2160) [6.0 MB] || moon-phases-persian-gulf_searchweb.png (320x180) [59.0 KB] || moon-phases-persian-gulf_thm.png (80x40) [5.1 KB] || moon-phases-in-the-persian-gulf.hwshow [303 bytes] || ", "hits": 23 }, { "id": 31110, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/31110/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2020-02-12T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Marine Layer Clouds in California", "description": "Marine layer clouds over California at night || day-night-california_vir_2012271_lrg_00000_print.jpg (1024x576) [96.9 KB] || day-night-california_vir_2012271_lrg_00000_searchweb.png (320x180) [59.3 KB] || day-night-california_vir_2012271_lrg_00000_thm.png (80x40) [5.0 KB] || day-night-california_vir_2012271_lrg_1080p30.mp4 (1920x1080) [5.6 MB] || day-night-california_vir_2012271_lrg_1080p30.webm (1920x1080) [2.1 MB] || day-night-california_vir_2012271_lrg_2160p30.mp4 (3840x2160) [13.6 MB] || 3840x2160_16x9_30p (3840x2160) [64.0 KB] || ", "hits": 46 }, { "id": 31114, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/31114/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2020-02-12T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Polar Darkness in The Arctic", "description": "VIIRS image of Arctic sea ice || polar-darkness_print.jpg (1024x576) [123.6 KB] || polar-darkness.png (3840x2160) [5.2 MB] || polar-darkness_searchweb.png (320x180) [46.9 KB] || polar-darkness_thm.png (80x40) [3.4 KB] || polar-darkness-in-the-arctic.hwshow [280 bytes] || ", "hits": 189 }, { "id": 31121, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/31121/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2020-02-12T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Lighting Paths Across the United States", "description": "VIIRS DNB compared with a map of major highways, railways, and rivers || lighting-paths_00000_print.jpg (1024x576) [94.3 KB] || lighting-paths_00000_searchweb.png (320x180) [57.1 KB] || lighting-paths_00000_thm.png (80x40) [4.8 KB] || lighting-paths_1080p30.mp4 (1920x1080) [8.8 MB] || lighting-paths_1080p30.webm (1920x1080) [2.3 MB] || lighting-paths_2160p30.mp4 (3840x2160) [32.2 MB] || 3840x2160_16x9_30p (3840x2160) [64.0 KB] || ", "hits": 108 }, { "id": 31123, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/31123/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2020-02-12T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Ten Percent of the World’s Gas Flares in One Spot — Nigeria", "description": "Nigeria VIIRS day/night band and infrared || gas-flares-nigeria_00000_print.jpg (1024x576) [44.4 KB] || gas-flares-nigeria_00000_searchweb.png (320x180) [39.0 KB] || gas-flares-nigeria_00000_thm.png (80x40) [2.7 KB] || gas-flares-nigeria_1080p30.mp4 (1920x1080) [3.1 MB] || gas-flares-nigeria_1080p30.webm (1920x1080) [2.3 MB] || gas-flares-nigeria_2160p30.mp4 (3840x2160) [7.8 MB] || 3840x2160_16x9_30p (3840x2160) [64.0 KB] || ", "hits": 78 }, { "id": 11845, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11845/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2015-05-19T11:00:00-04:00", "title": "Raising Crops In The Desert", "description": "Over the past three decades, Saudi Arabia has been drilling for a resource more precious than oil. || c-1280.jpg (1280x720) [584.6 KB] || c-1024.jpg (1024x576) [435.4 KB] || c-1024_print.jpg (1024x576) [405.3 KB] || c-1024_searchweb.png (320x180) [158.8 KB] || ", "hits": 174 }, { "id": 11752, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11752/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2015-03-03T11:00:00-05:00", "title": "A Long View Of The Arctic", "description": "Hitch a ride with a satellite as it takes flight over the Arctic on the summer solstice. || c-1920.jpg (1920x1080) [240.5 KB] || c-1280.jpg (1920x1080) [248.4 KB] || c-1024.jpg (1024x576) [141.4 KB] || c-1024_print.jpg (1024x576) [133.0 KB] || c-1024_searchweb.png (320x180) [81.8 KB] || c-1024_print_thm.png (80x40) [22.0 KB] || ", "hits": 78 }, { "id": 11779, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11779/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2015-02-16T16:00:00-05:00", "title": "Landsat 8 Crosses the Arctic", "description": "The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 acquired this unbroken swath of images on June 21, 2014—the summer solstice—when the Sun stays above the horizon of the Arctic for at least 24 hours. While much of the region is still frozen in June, the ice is in various stages of melting.For complete transcript, click here.Watch this video on the NASA Earth Observatory YouTube channel.Music: Thin Ice Mining by Chris Constantinou [PRS], Paul Frazer [PRS] Melting Glacier by Chris Constantinou [PRS], Paul Frazer [PRS] Undiscovered Oceans by Aaron Yeddidia [BMI], Chris Lang [BMI], Eric Cunningham [BMI] Another Sleep by Chris Constantinou [PRS], Paul Frazer [PRS] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath_MASTER_youtube_hq_print.jpg (1024x576) [110.7 KB] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath_MASTER_youtube_hq_searchweb.png (320x180) [71.0 KB] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath_MASTER_youtube_hq_web.png (320x180) [71.0 KB] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath_MASTER_youtube_hq_thm.png (80x40) [6.1 KB] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath_MASTER_youtube_hq.mov (1920x1080) [411.2 MB] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath_MASTER_appletv.m4v (960x540) [122.8 MB] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath_MASTER_1280x720.wmv (1280x720) [144.3 MB] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath_MASTER_prores.mov (1280x720) [4.2 GB] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath_MASTER_appletv.webm (960x540) [33.2 MB] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath_MASTER_appletv_subtitles.m4v (960x540) [122.7 MB] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath_MASTER_ipod_lg.m4v (640x360) [49.2 MB] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath_MASTER_nasaportal.mov (640x360) [121.2 MB] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath-caption.en_US.srt [145 bytes] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath-caption.en_US.vtt [158 bytes] || G2015-015_Arctic_Swath_MASTER_ipod_sm.mp4 (320x240) [26.7 MB] || ", "hits": 185 }, { "id": 11650, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11650/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2014-10-02T11:30:00-04:00", "title": "Planet Earth", "description": "Earth is constantly changing, and NASA scientists and engineers are working daily to explore and understand the planet on scales from local to global. Though Earth science has been a key part of NASA’s mission since the agency was founded in 1958, this year has been one of the peaks. Three Earth-observing missions—two satellites and one instrument—have already been launched and two more missions are set to take off later this year. All of these new efforts complement an existing fleet of Earth-observing satellites and research aircraft that monitor our world. Watch the video to see a time-lapse that shows land and cloud changes in the eastern hemisphere as seen by the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite. || ", "hits": 42 }, { "id": 4173, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4173/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2014-09-04T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GPM Examines East Coast Snow Storm", "description": "On March 17, 2014 the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's Core Observatory flew over the East coast's last snow storm of the 2013-2014 winter season. This was also one of the first major snow storms observed by GPM shortly after it was launched on February 27, 2014.The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in 3-dimensions.For forecasters, GPM's microwave and radar data are part of the toolbox of satellite data, including other low Earth orbit and geostationary satellites, that they use to monitor tropical cyclones and hurricanes. The addition of GPM data to the current suite of satellite data is timely. Its predecessor precipitation satellite, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, is 18 years into what was originally a three-year mission. GPM's new high-resolution microwave imager data and the unique radar data ensure that forecasters and modelers won't have a gap in coverage. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. All GPM data products will be released to the public on September 4, 2104. Current and future data sets are available to registered users from NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing Center website. || ", "hits": 24 }, { "id": 11470, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11470/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2014-04-01T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Seeing Precipitation From Space", "description": "An extratropical cyclone spun across the North Pacific near Japan on March 10, 2014. The cyclone became the first storm imaged by NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory, launched eleven days earlier. The two instruments aboard the satellite are tuned in to different types of precipitation—rain, snow, and any mixture of the two, letting scientists see exactly where each is falling inside a storm. This kind of detail is important for understanding how storms behave and how the water essential to life moves around the planet. Watch the video to learn more about the satellite and how it observes our watery world. || ", "hits": 22 }, { "id": 4153, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4153/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2014-03-25T01:00:00-04:00", "title": "GPM/GMI First Light", "description": "Eleven days after the Feb. 27 launch of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory, the two instruments aboard took their first joint images of an interesting precipitation event. On March 10, the Core Observatory passed over an extra-tropical cyclone about 1055 miles (1700 kilometers) due east of Japan's Honshu Island. The storm formed from the collision of a cold front wrapping around a warm front, emerging over the ocean near Okinawa on March 8. It moved northeast over the ocean south of Japan, drawing cold air west-to-east over the land, a typical winter weather pattern that also brought heavy snow over Hokkaido, the northernmost of the four main islands. After the GPM images were taken, the storm continued to move eastward, slowly intensifying before weakening in the central North Pacific.This visualization shows data from the GPM Microwave Imager, which observes different types of precipitation with 13 channels. Scientists analyze that data and then use it to calculate the light to heavy rain rates and falling snow within the storm.For more information on this topic: GPM web siteOther multimedia items related to this story: GPM GMI First Light (#11508) GPM DPR First Light (#11509) || ", "hits": 37 }, { "id": 11446, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11446/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2014-01-30T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Spectacular Sarychev", "description": "On June 12, 2009, a fortuitous orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) made it possible for an astronaut on board to capture Sarychev Volcano in the early stages of eruption. The volcano is located on the northwestern end of Matua Island, which is part of the Kuril Islands, a chain of 56 islands northeast of Japan. The eruption sent a plume of brown-colored ash and white steam rising into the atmosphere. The plume was so immense that it cast a large shadow on the island. Sarychev is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain. Prior to June 12, the last explosive eruption occurred in 1989, with eruptions in 1986, 1976, 1954, and 1946 also producing lava flows. Watch the video to see how the eruption looked from space. || ", "hits": 67 }, { "id": 30484, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30484/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-12-24T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "A Tale of Two Cyclone Seasons", "description": "The basins are roughly 180 degrees apart, and in 2013, so were the tropical cyclone seasons. While the Atlantic hurricane season was remarkably quiet and mostly uneventful, the typhoon season was active and intense in the Western Pacific Ocean, though not necessarily out of character for the region.2013 Atlantic Hurricane SeasonThis map shows the tracks and intensity of the tropical storms in the Atlantic basin in 2013. The color and width of each line reflects the intensity of the storm on each day of its activity.In the Atlantic, 13 tropical storms were observed (plus one tropical depression), with just two developing into hurricanes—the fewest since 1982. None of the storms became major hurricanes, the first time that has happened since 1994. The U.S. National Weather Service ranked 2013 as “the sixth-least-active Atlantic hurricane season since 1950.”“This unexpectedly low activity is linked to an unpredictable atmospheric pattern that prevented the growth of storms by producing exceptionally dry, sinking air, and strong vertical wind shear in much of the main hurricane formation region,” said Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “Also detrimental were several strong outbreaks of dry and stable air that originated over Africa.”2013 Western Pacific Typhoon SeasonThis map shows the tracks and intensity of the tropical storms in the Western Pacific basin in 2013. The color and width of each line reflects the intensity of the storm on each day of its activity. In 2013, there were between 28 and 31 tropical storms, and 13 to 16 typhoons—six of which reached super typhoon strength. According to the Tropical Storm Risk Consortium, the average is 26 tropical storms and 16 typhoons; other institutions have arrived at slightly different counts for the region.Nearly one-third of the world’s tropical storms form in the Western Pacific in any given year. This is because the sea surface temperatures are among the warmest in the world; the mixed layer of the ocean is deeper; there are fewer land barriers; and the tropopause—the boundary between the lower atmosphere and the stratosphere—is very high and cold. Essentially, storms have more fuel and more room (horizontally and vertically) to grow in the Western Pacific. || ", "hits": 72 }, { "id": 30479, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30479/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-11-12T13:00:00-05:00", "title": "Coastal Dead Zones", "description": "The size and number of marine dead zones—areas where the deep water is so low in dissolved oxygen that sea creatures can’t survive—have grown explosively in the past half-century. Yellow circles on this map show the location of observed eutrophic zones. Red dots show where hypoxic zones have been observed.It’s no coincidence that dead zones occur downriver of places where land is intensively used for agriculture. Some of the fertilizer we apply to crops is washed into streams and rivers. Fertilizer-laden runoff triggers explosive planktonic algae growth in coastal areas. The algae die and rain down into deep waters, where their remains are like fertilizer for microbes. The microbes decompose the organic matter, using up the oxygen. Mass killing of fish and other sea life often results.Satellites can observe changes in the way the ocean surface reflects and absorbs sunlight when the water holds a lot of particles of organic matter. Darker blues in this image show higher concentrations of particulate organic matter, an indication of the overly fertile waters that can culminate in dead zones. || ", "hits": 377 }, { "id": 30476, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30476/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-11-01T15:00:00-04:00", "title": "Mount Etna", "description": "Twin volcanic plumes—one of ash, one of gas—rose from Sicily’s Mount Etna on the morning of October 26, 2013. L’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) Osservatorio Etneo (National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology Etna Observatory) reported that Etna was experiencing its first paroxysm in six months. Multiple eruption columns are common at Etna, a result of complex plumbing within the volcano. The Northeast Crater, one of several on Etna’s summit, was emitting the ash column, while the New Southeast Crater was simultaneously venting mostly gas.This natural-color image collected by Landsat 8 shows the view from space at 11:38 a.m. local time. The towering, gas-rich plume cast a dark shadow over the lower, ash-rich plume and Etna’s northwestern flank. Relatively fresh lava flows (less than a century or so old) are dark gray; vegetation is green; and the tile-roofed buildings of Bronte and Biancavilla lend the towns an ochre hue. || ", "hits": 141 }, { "id": 30473, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30473/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-11-01T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Observing Freshwater Losses in the Middle East", "description": "A study using data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites found that large parts of the arid Middle East region lost freshwater reserves rapidly during the past decade. Meanwhile, demand for freshwater continues to rise. The two natural-color images on the left were acquired by the Landsat 5 satellite and show the shrinking of the Qadisiyah Reservoir in Iraq between September 7, 2006 [top left] and September 15, 2009 [bottom left]. The graph below these two images shows the elevation of the water in that reservoir between January 2003 and December 2009. The elevation is a proxy measurement for the total volume of water stored there. The two regional images on the right were created with GRACE data and show total water storage in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins for September 2003 [top right] and September 2009 [bottom right]. The graph shows a decrease in water storage for the study area as measured by GRACE from January 2003 to December 2009. The gray line depicts total water storage—groundwater, surface water bodies, and soil moisture—while the green line depicts changes in surface water. The difference between those two lines reflects the change in water stored in underground aquifers. The total water storage shows a seasonal fluctuation, but also an overall downward trend, suggesting that groundwater is being pumped and used faster than natural processes can replenish it. Data from satellites such as GRACE are essential to providing a more complete global picture of water storage trends.Used in 2014 Calendar. || ", "hits": 148 }, { "id": 11353, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11353/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-10-31T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Follow The Line", "description": "You may think the seasons are caused by a change in the distance between Earth and the sun. In fact, the tilt of Earth on its axis is the most important factor. You can see this from space by watching the movement of Earth’s terminator—the edge between the shadows of nightfall and the sunlight of dusk and dawn. Because Earth spins on a tilted axis, the orientation of this line changes over the course of a year in sync with the seasons. On the September and March equinox, when Earth is at a right angle to the sun, light is spread evenly across the globe and the terminator runs from pole to pole. But on the December and June solstice, when Earth is tilted away from and toward the sun, respectively, light is cast disproportionately on each hemisphere, causing the terminator to appear slanted. Watch the video to view the migration of Earth's terminator across the seasons. || ", "hits": 813 }, { "id": 30220, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30220/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-10-21T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Hurricane Sandy Causes Blackouts in New Jersey and New York", "description": "In the days following landfall of Hurricane Sandy, millions remained without power. This pair of images shows the difference in city lighting across New Jersey and New York before (August 31, 2012), when conditions were normal, and after (November 1, 2012) the storm. Both images were captured by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) “day-night band” onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite, which detects light in a range of wavelengths and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as gas flares, city lights, and reflected moonlight.In Manhattan, the lower third of the island is dark on November 1, while Rockaway Beach, much of Long Island, and nearly all of central New Jersey are significantly dimmer. The barrier islands along the New Jersey coast, which are heavily developed with tourist businesses and year-round residents, are just barely visible in moonlight after the blackout. || ", "hits": 32 }, { "id": 30160, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30160/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-10-17T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf", "description": "In the Southern Hemisphere summer of 2002, scientists monitoring daily satellite images of the Antarctic Peninsula watched almost the entire Larsen-B Ice Shelf splinter and collapse in just over one month. They had never witnessed such a large area—1250 square miles (~3237 square kilometers)—disintegrate so rapidly. The collapse of the Larsen-B Ice Shelf was captured in this series of images between January 31 and April 13, 2002. At the start of the series, the ice shelf (left) is tattooed with pools of meltwater (blue). By February 17, the leading edge of the C-shaped shelf had retreated about 6 miles (~10 kilometers). By March 7, the shelf had disintegrated into a blue-tinged mixture, or mélange, of slush and icebergs. The collapse appears to have been due to a series of warm summers on the Antarctic Peninsula, which culminated with an exceptionally warm summer in 2002. Warm ocean temperatures in the Weddell Sea that occurred during the same period might have caused thinning and melting on the underside of the ice shelf. || ", "hits": 100 }, { "id": 30181, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30181/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-10-17T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Ice Loss on Puncak Jaya", "description": "Tropical glaciers have retreated significantly in the past century, and many have lost more than half of their ice in the last few decades. Indonesia’s glaciers are no exception. In 1989, five ice masses sat on the slopes of Puncak Jaya, a 4,884-meter peak within the Sudirman Range. By 2009, two of the glaciers—Meren and Southwall—were gone. The other three—Carstenz, East Northwall Firn, and West North Wall Firn—had retreated dramatically.This pair of images, captured by the Thematic Mapper (TM) on Landsat 4 and Landsat 5, offer a view of the ice loss between 1989 and 2009. The images are a combination of shortwave infrared, near infrared, and green light. Ice appears light blue. Clouds are primarily white, though some are tinged with blue. Exposed rock is salmon-colored; forests are green. (The gray area near the center of the 2009 image is the Grasberg mine. Established in 1990 by Freeport McMoran, the open-pit mine has the world’s largest known gold reserve and second largest copper reserve.) || ", "hits": 35 }, { "id": 30182, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30182/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-10-17T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Tehran Urbanization", "description": "Tehran, Iran’s capital, ranks high among the world’s fast-growing cities. In the early 1940s, Tehran’s population was about 700,000. By 1966, it had risen to 3 million, and by 1986—during the Iran-Iraq war—migrants brought the population to 6 million. Today, the metropolitan area has more than 10 million residents. This explosive growth has environmental and public health consequences, including air and water pollution and the loss of arable land.The Thematic Mapper sensor on NASA’s Landsat 5 satellite acquired these false-color images of Tehran on August 2, 1985, and July 19, 2009. In both images, vegetation appears bright green, urban areas range in color from gray to black, and barren areas appear brown. Whereas non-urbanized areas fringe the earlier image, urbanization fills almost the entire frame of the later image. Major roadways crisscrossing the city in 1985 remain visible in 2009, but many additional roadways have been added, particularly in the north. || ", "hits": 90 }, { "id": 30183, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30183/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-10-17T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Urban Growth in Tucson, Arizona", "description": "The astronauts who snapped photos of Earth during the Mercury and Gemini missions produced more than just pretty pictures. They planted seeds at the USGS and NASA. In the mid-1960s, the director of USGS proposed a satellite program to observe our planet from above, and later described Landsat as “a direct result of the demonstrated utility of the Mercury and Gemini orbital photography to Earth resource studies.”On a flight in late August 1965, Gemini V astronauts Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad took photos of the Earth, including a shot showing Tucson, Arizona. A lot changed in the 46 years between that photo and the satellite image acquired in 2011 by the Thematic Mapper on Landsat 5.A comparison of the images shows more city and less green. The expansion of urbanized areas is readily identifiable by the grid pattern of city streets. Between 1965 and 2011, Tucson’s population grew rapidly. In 1970, the population was 262,933; in 2010, it was 520,116. || ", "hits": 170 }, { "id": 30195, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30195/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-10-17T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Night Views of Fires in Siberia", "description": "The vast majority of Russian wildfires occur in Siberia, generally along the southern border. This year’s blazes have followed the typical pattern and occurred primarily east of the Urals. This pair of images from August 3, 2012 shows fires using two different instruments. The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite carries an instrument called the “day-night band,” designed to be sensitive to such low levels of visible light that it can detect wildfires in the dark of the night. On August 3, 2012, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on Suomi NPP acquired the right image of wildfires blazing in eastern Siberia. The white outlines are the actively burning perimeters of several fires. || ", "hits": 24 }, { "id": 30082, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30082/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-10-04T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "Rotating Earth at Night", "description": "This new space-based view of Earth’s city lights is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite. The data was acquired over nine days in April 2012 and thirteen days in October 2012. It took the satellite 312 orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth’s land surface and islands. This new data was then mapped over existing MODIS Blue Marble imagery to provide a realistic view of the planet. The view was made possible by the “day-night band” of Suomi NPP’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses “smart” light sensors to observe dim signals such as city lights, auroras, wildfires, and reflected moonlight. This low-light sensor can distinguish night lights tens to hundreds of times better than previous satellites. || ", "hits": 392 }, { "id": 11284, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11284/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-07-30T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Mapping Drought", "description": "In 2012, the continental United States suffered through one of its worst droughts in decades. With another summer upon us, drought continues to be a problem for many parts of the country. Using data from NASA’s GRACE satellites and other satellite and ground-based measurements, scientists have created maps that show the amount of water in the U.S. stored near the surface and underground from August 2002 through May 2013. The maps provide two views of monthly changes in water storage: the wetness in the “root zone,\" or the top meter of soil, and the ground water storage in shallow aquifers. The color-coded maps express how much water is stored as a probability of occurrence from 1948 to 2009, where red colors represent places that are dryer than normal, and blue colors represent places that are wetter than normal. Watch the visualization to see how water storage in the U.S. changes over time. || ", "hits": 17 }, { "id": 30056, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30056/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-07-01T10:00:00-04:00", "title": "Athabasca Oil Sands", "description": "Buried under Canada’s boreal forest is one of the world’s largest reserves of oil. Bitumen—a very thick and heavy form of oil (also called asphalt)—coats grains of sand and other minerals in a deposit that covers about 142,200 square kilometers of northwest Alberta.Only 20 percent of the oil sands lie near the surface where they can easily be mined. The rest of the oil sands are buried more than 75 meters below ground and are extracted by injecting hot water into a well that liquefies the oil for pumping. This series of images from the Landsat satellite shows the growth of surface mines over the Athabasca oil sands between 1984 and 2015.These images show slow growth between 1984 and 2000, followed by a decade of more rapid development. The first mine (from 1967, now part of the Millennium Mine) is visible near the Athabasca River in the 1984 image. The only new development visible between 1984 and 2000 is the Mildred Lake Mine (west of the river), which began production in 1996. By 2015 operations have expanded to the north and east. || ", "hits": 37 }, { "id": 30055, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30055/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-06-27T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "Columbia Glacier, Alaska", "description": "The Columbia Glacier in Alaska is one of the most rapidly changing glaciers in the world. These false-color images show how the glacier and the surrounding landscape has changed since 1986. Snow and ice appears bright cyan, vegetation is green, clouds are white or light orange, and the open ocean is dark blue. Exposed bedrock is brown, while rocky debris on the glacier’s surface is gray. By 2011, the terminus had retreated more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) to the north. Since the 1980s, the glacier has lost about half of its total thickness and volume. The retreat of the Columbia contributes to global sea-level rise, mostly through iceberg calving. This one glacier accounts for nearly half of the ice loss in the Chugach Mountains. However, the ice losses are not exclusively tied to increasing air and water temperatures. Climate change may have given the Columbia an initial nudge, but it has more to do with mechanical processes. In fact, when the Columbia reaches the shoreline, its retreat will likely slow down. The more stable surface will cause the rate of calving to decline, making it possible for the glacier to start rebuilding a moraine and advancing once again. || ", "hits": 62 }, { "id": 11275, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11275/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-06-27T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "One City, 660 Views", "description": "For 41 years, USGS-NASA Landsat satellites have collected images of our planet...millions of them. Such images help everyone from scientists to city planners examine how the landscape changes with time. In one patch of desert, where the Rio Grande makes a border between the United States and Mexico, the Landsat fleet has captured hundreds of photo-like natural-color images. They show fields turning green and brown with the season; new urban and suburban developments expanding around El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico; changing angles of sunlight; and clouds moving over the neighboring mountains. They also reveal subtle changes in the sensors as technology improves with each generation of satellite. Watch the video to see a multi-decadal, time-lapse view of this desert city. || ", "hits": 30 }, { "id": 30268, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30268/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-06-26T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Crop Circles in the Desert", "description": "Over the past three decades, Saudi Arabia has been drilling for a resource more precious than oil. Engineers and farmers have tapped ancient reserves of water, dating back to the last Ice Age, to grow crops in the desert. This series of false-color satellite images show the evolution of agricultural operations in the Wadi As-Sirhan Basin. New vegetation appears bright green while dry vegetation or fallow fields appear rust colored. Dry, barren surfaces (mostly desert) are pink and yellow. Saudi Arabians have reached this underground water source by drilling wells through sedimentary rock, as much as a kilometer beneath the desert sands. Rainfall averages just 100 to 200 millimeters per year and usually does not recharge the underground aquifers, making the groundwater a non-renewable source. Although no one knows how much water lies beneath the desert—estimates range from 252 to 870 cubic kilometers—hydrologists believe it will only be economical to pump it for about 50 years. || ", "hits": 86 }, { "id": 30053, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30053/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-06-25T13:00:00-04:00", "title": "Dead Sea Salt Farming", "description": "The Dead Sea is so named because its high salinity discourages the growth of fish, plants, and other wildlife. It is the lowest surface feature on Earth, sitting roughly 1,300 feet below sea level. On a hot, dry summer day, the water level can drop as much as one inch because of evaporation. These three false-color images were captured in 1972, 1989, and 2011 by Landsat satellites. Deep waters are blue or dark blue, while brighter blues indicate shallow waters or salt ponds. Green indicates sparsely vegetated lands. Denser vegetation appears bright red. The ancient Egyptians used salts from the Dead Sea for mummification, fertilizers, and potash (a potassium-based salt). In the modern age, sodium chloride and potassium salts culled from the sea are used for water conditioning, road de-icing, and the manufacturing of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics. The expansions of massive salt evaporation projects are clearly visible over the span of 39 years. || ", "hits": 151 }, { "id": 30046, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30046/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-06-19T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Landsat-8 Finds Clouds Hiding in Plain Sight", "description": "The presence of high, thin cirrus clouds can be hard to detect and their shadows can interfere with satellite observations. Even satellite sensors designed to “see” beyond the visible spectrum struggle to detect them. Landsat-8’s Operational Land Imager (OLI) can detect these clouds better than previous Landsat sensors because in addition to measuring visible and infrared light in similar ranges to its predecessors, it also includes a shortwave infrared band (band 9)—which is useful for cirrus cloud detection. For example, the natural-color OLI image of the Aral Sea from March 24, 2013 shown here appears to have been taken on a relatively clear day. When viewed in the cirrus-detecting band alone (grayscale image) however, bright white clouds appear. The point of the cirrus band is to alert Landsat users to the presence of cirrus clouds so they know that the data in the pixels under the clouds could be slightly askew. Scientists could then use images taken on a cloud-free day, or they could correct the data from the other spectral bands to account for the cirrus clouds. || ", "hits": 82 }, { "id": 30045, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30045/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-06-18T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Looking for Water Amidst the Heat", "description": "In Southern California irrigated farmland stretches north- and southward from the Salton Sea—an artificial inland sea in the desert. Blocks of square farmland appear in shades of green and tan in the natural-color image acquired on March 24, 2013 by the Operational Land Imager onboard the Landsat Data Continuity Mission—now renamed Landsat-8. On that same day, thermal measurements from the Thermal Infrared Sensor (grayscale image) show that the crops had different temperatures—specifically, cooler areas appear as dark shades, while warmer areas appear as bright shades. Dark pixels—representing cooler areas—in thermal images from TIRS help water managers determine where water is being used for irrigation. Plants cool down when they transpire, so the combination of water evaporating from the plants and the ground (i.e., evapotranspiration) lowers the temperature of the irrigated land. Scientists use these thermal measurements to calculate how much water agricultural fields are using. || ", "hits": 18 }, { "id": 11267, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11267/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-05-30T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Come Fly With Me", "description": "Have you ever wondered what it would be like to soar like a satellite, watching the world pass beneath you? The dream is elusive (except for astronauts), but through imagery from the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), we can take a vicarious flight. In mid-April 2013, the newest satellite in the Landsat family scanned a 120-mile-wide swath of land from northern Russia to South Africa. That flight path afforded us a chance to assemble a flyover view of what LDCM's Operational Land Imager saw, including clouds, haze, and varying angles of sunlight. The full mosaic and animation stretches more than 6,000 miles and includes 56 adjoining, natural-color scenes stitched together into a seamless swath. Watch the videos to see highlights from the animation. || ", "hits": 18 }, { "id": 11249, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11249/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-05-15T11:00:00-04:00", "title": "Landsat 8 Long Swath", "description": "After two months of on-orbit testing and calibration, Landsat 8 (previously called LDCM) fired its propulsion system on April 12, 2013, and ascended to its final orbit 438 miles (705 km) above Earth. The animation, made from scenes taken a week later on April 19, allows viewers to fly with the satellite from its final operating orbit. 56 continuous Landsat scenes from that orbit have been stitched together into a seamless view from Russia to South Africa. Orbiting at 16,800 mph (27,000 kph), Landsat 8 made this flight in just more than 20 minutes. The animation moves faster, covering 5,665 miles (9,117 kilometers) in nearly 16 minutes. You would have to be moving about 21,930 mph (35,290 kph) to get a similar view — only slightly slower than the Apollo astronauts who entered Earth's orbit from the moon at 25,000 mph (40,200 kph). We pan down the long swath of data from Landsat 8, starting in northern Russia, passing over the Caucasus Mountains, the Republic of Georgia, Armenia, Turkey (passing Lake Van), Iraq, and Saudi Arabia (the cities of Medina and Jeddah), crossing the Red Sea into Eritrea, Ethiopia, the Kenya-Uganda border and catching the eastern edge of Lake Victoria, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, a little bit of Mozambique, and ending in northern South Africa. || ", "hits": 41 }, { "id": 4076, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4076/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2013-05-15T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Landsat-8 Long Swath", "description": "Landsat-8 launched February 11th, 2013. This visualization shows one of the first full swaths of data taken on April 19th, 2013, only one week after Landsat-8 ascended to its final altitude of 438 miles (705 km). || ", "hits": 91 }, { "id": 30028, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30028/", "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "release_date": "2013-04-05T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Earth at Night 2012", "description": "This new space-based view of Earth's city lights is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite. The data was acquired over nine days in April 2012 and thirteen days in October 2012. It took the satellite 312 orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth's land surface and islands. This new data was then mapped over existing MODIS Blue Marble imagery to provide a realistic view of the planet.The view was made possible by the \"day-night band\" of Suomi NPP's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses \"smart\" light sensors to observe dim signals such as city lights, auroras, wildfires, and reflected moonlight. This low-light sensor can distinguish night lights tens to hundreds of times better than previous satellites. || ", "hits": 351 }, { "id": 11195, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11195/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-03-14T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Ship Tracks Off North America", "description": "Though they resemble airplane contrails, it was actually ships churning across open water that left this cluster of serpentine cloud trails lingering over the eastern Pacific Ocean. The narrow clouds, known as ship tracks, form when water vapor condenses around small particles of pollution released into the air as part of ship exhaust. Some of these particles are soluble in water and serve as seeds around which cloud droplets form. Clouds infused with ship exhaust end up having more and smaller droplets than unpolluted clouds. As a result, light hitting these exhaust-infused clouds scatters in many directions, making them appear brighter than standard marine clouds, which are typically seeded by naturally-occurring particles of sea salt. Watch the video to see how wind patterns change the shape of these clouds over the course of a day. || ", "hits": 43 }, { "id": 11171, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11171/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-01-15T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Nature's Night Lights", "description": "\"The night is nowhere near as dark as most of us think. In fact, the Earth is never really dark,\" says scientist Steven Miller of Colorado State University. Auroras dance across the skies. Wildfires and volcanoes rage. Moonlight and starlight reflect off water, snow, clouds and deserts. The night-imaging capability of the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite is capturing all of this, giving scientists like Miller a new way to see storms and weather patterns, atmospheric waves and other dynamic events that don't stop at sundown. \"For all the reasons that we need to see the Earth during the day, we also need to see the Earth at night,\" says Miller. \"The Earth never sleeps; it's constantly moving, evolving, building up here and tearing down there.\" Watch the video to see different views of the Persian Gulf region in the changing light of the moon. || ", "hits": 31 }, { "id": 11146, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11146/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-12-27T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "The Night Electric", "description": "The night side of our planet twinkles with light, tracing a map of human settlement across Earth. Scientists have studied Earth's night lights in the past, using military satellites and astronaut photos; but in 2012, the view became significantly clearer. Data from the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite was used to make a new composite view of Earth at night that allows scientists to quantify the intensity and sources of night light for the first time. A special low-light sensor on Suomi-NPP can distinguish night lights with six times better spatial resolution and 250 times better resolution of lighting levels than before, capturing even the dim light of an isolated highway lamp or a fishing boat at sea. Watch the videos to take a tour of Earth, sparkling in the dark of night. || ", "hits": 73 }, { "id": 11157, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11157/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-12-05T13:30:00-05:00", "title": "Earth At Night", "description": "In daylight our big blue marble is all land, oceans and clouds. But the night - is electric.This view of Earth at night is a cloud-free view from space as acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Satellite (Suomi NPP). A joint program by NASA and NOAA, Suomi NPP captured this nighttime image by the satellite's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The day-night band on VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as city lights, gas flares, and wildfires. This new image is a composite of data acquired over nine days in April and thirteen days in October 2012. It took 312 satellite orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of land surface.This video uses the Earth at night view created by NASA's Earth Observatory with data processed by NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center and combined with a version of the Earth Observatory's Blue Marble: Next Generation. || ", "hits": 502 }, { "id": 4019, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4019/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2012-12-05T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Unprecedented New Look at Our Planet at Night", "description": "In daylight our big blue marble is all land, oceans and clouds. But the night - is electric.This view of Earth at night is a cloud-free view from space as acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Satellite (Suomi NPP). A joint program by NASA and NOAA, Suomi NPP captured this nighttime image by the satellite's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The day-night band on VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as city lights, gas flares, and wildfires. This new image is a composite of data acquired over nine days in April and thirteen days in October 2012. It took 312 satellite orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of land surface.This video uses the Earth at night view created by NASA's Earth Observatory with data processed by NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center and combined with a version of the Earth Observatory's Blue Marble: Next Generation. || ", "hits": 225 }, { "id": 11141, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11141/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-11-29T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "The Four Seasons", "description": "It's no secret that the 23.5 degree tilt of Earth's axis causes the amount of sunlight that reaches the planet's surface to change throughout the year, producing the familiar pattern of spring, summer, fall and winter. A sharp variation in seasons can be seen particularly in places around or within the mid-latitudes, where the amount of sunlight received ranges widely depending on the time of year. Located at about 39 degrees north of the equator, Lake Tahoe, a nature lover's playground on the California-Nevada border, gets a hearty taste of all four seasons. Viewed from space, the seasons paint the landscape in passing shades of green, brown and white. Watch the transformation in the time-lapse video of images captured by NASA's Earth Observing-1 satellite between August 2009 and September 2010. || ", "hits": 400 }, { "id": 11104, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11104/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-10-18T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Wild Arctic Summer", "description": "In the spring and summer of 2012, land and sea ice thinned in some regions within the Arctic Circle and completely disappeared in others. NASA satellites watched as a hurricane-force storm broke up ice near the North Pole, as open water flowed through the Northwest Passage and as a city-sized iceberg dropped into the sea from the edge of Greenland's Petermann Glacier. Sea ice covered less of the Arctic Ocean than at any time since satellite records began in 1979, and nearly the entire surface of Greenland's ice sheet was melting simultaneously for a weekend in July. Some of these events lined up with scientists' ideas about how warmer ocean and air temperatures are changing the Arctic's weather and climate. Other phenomena were familiar and natural, if a bit more extreme. Watch the time-lapse video to see an up-close view of a massive iceberg breaking off from Petermann Glacier. || ", "hits": 53 }, { "id": 11079, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11079/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-09-18T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Dawn To Dusk", "description": "As Hurricane Isaac churned through the Caribbean Sea, past Florida, and toward the Gulf Coast, Earth-observing satellites watched every move. When the Category 1 storm finally battered the coast of Louisiana on August 28, 2012, multiple satellites produced striking views of the storm by day, by night, and in an experimental rapid-fire mode that showed incredibly fine detail of the storm's evolution. The GOES 14 satellite normally captures one image every 15 minutes. But as Isaac made landfall the weather satellite captured one image per minute, illuminating otherwise unseen detail. The movement of clouds at different altitudes creates a textured appearance while thunderstorms near the storm's core bubble up as dusk approaches. The animation shows the GOES 14 view of Isaac from dawn to dusk on August 28, a unique view of the storm as it hit the Gulf Coast. || ", "hits": 45 }, { "id": 11068, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11068/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-08-02T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "Imported Dust in North American Skies", "description": "NASA and university scientists have made the first measurement-based estimate of the amount and composition of tiny airborne particles that arrive in the air over North America each year. With a 3D view of the atmosphere now possible from satellites, the scientists distinguished dust from pollution, and calculated that dust is the main ingredient of these foreign imports. || ", "hits": 19 }, { "id": 11030, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11030/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-07-23T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Columbia Glacier, Alaska, 1986-2011", "description": "The Columbia Glacier in Alaska is one of many vanishing around the world. Glacier retreat is one of the most direct and understandable effects of climate change. The consequences of the decline in alpine glaciers include contributing to global sea level rise. || ", "hits": 67 }, { "id": 10982, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10982/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-06-14T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Rapid Retreat", "description": "Columbia Glacier descends from an ice field 10,000 feet above sea level, through the flanks of Alaska's Chugach Mountains and into a narrow inlet. Since 1980, the glacier has lost about half of its thickness and volume, while the front where the glacier's ice meets open water—called the terminus—has retreated more than 12 miles. Climate change may have helped nudge the terminus off an underwater anchor of rock and debris that stabilized the ice for many years. Once it lost that footing, the lack of friction between ice and bedrock has driven a rapid loss of ice from the glacier to Columbia Bay. A time-lapse video of false-color images captured by USGS-NASA Landsat satellites shows how the glacier and the surrounding landscape changed between 1986 and 2011. Watch ice give way to ocean and bedrock become exposed as Columbia Glacier retreats. || ", "hits": 72 }, { "id": 10946, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10946/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-05-01T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Hottest Place On Earth?", "description": "Many places call themselves the hottest on Earth, but most are not serious contenders. Ground-based weather stations typically sit near civilized areas and don't reveal the full story. Satellites, however, observe the entire planet, including extreme environments where no human wants to be. By detecting land skin temperatures—which often significantly exceed air temperatures and provide a measure of how the land absorbs and re-emits solar energy—satellites can dispel myth. Scientists analyzing NASA satellite data found the hottest spot on Earth changed three times within seven years, but the characteristics of each location were the same—dry, rocky, dark-colored and remote, like the land surrounding China's Flaming Mountain, pictured above. Temperatures in these places often top out above 150 degrees Fahrenheit (65 || ", "hits": 48 }, { "id": 10934, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10934/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-03-27T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Devastation And Recovery", "description": "After two months of geologic volatility, an earthquake on May 18, 1980, triggered the northern flank of Mount St. Helens to collapse, sending an enormous avalanche of debris crashing toward the North Fork Toutle River in southwest Washington. Like a bottle of champagne shattering as it's uncorked, hot rocks, ash, gas and steam exploded from the volcano, obliterating the forested landscape to the north. The velocity of the blast exceeded speeds of 670 miles per hour, shearing trees at their trunks up to 19 miles away. The video below, based on images captured by USGS-NASA Landsat satellites between 1979 and 2011, documents the scale of the devastation and the surrounding vegetation's slow road to recovery. Some finer details aren't visible from space, so scientists have closely monitored the aftermath from the ground, as seen in photos taken from the USGS archive included in the media gallery. || ", "hits": 26 }, { "id": 10862, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10862/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-02-16T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Shrinking Aral Sea", "description": "In the 1960s, the Soviet Union undertook major water diversion projects on the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers, capturing water that once fed into the Aral Sea. Irrigation projects made the desert bloom, but they spelled doom for the natural freshwater lake. As the Aral Sea dried up, fisheries collapsed, as did the communities that depended on them. The remaining water supply became increasingly salty and polluted with runoff from agricultural plots. Dust blowing from the exposed lakebed eventually degraded the soils, forcing further water diversion efforts to revive them. On a larger scale, loss of the Aral Sea's water influenced regional climate, making the winters even colder and the summers much hotter. Fifty years later, the lake is virtually gone. View the dramatic changes that took place over decades in this collection of satellite images. || ", "hits": 434 }, { "id": 10894, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10894/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-01-17T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Dubai's Rapid Growth", "description": "To expand the possibilities for beachfront development, Dubai undertook a massive engineering project to create hundreds of artificial islands along its Persian Gulf coastline. Built from sand dredged from the sea floor, and protected from erosion by rock breakwaters, the islands are shaped in recognizable forms such as palm trees. As the islands grew, so did the city. In 2000, the area was nearly entirely undeveloped. By 2011, whole city blocks had sprung up. Offshore, the first palm-shaped island, Palm Jumeirah, reached completion. The collection of false-color satellite images below shows the growth of Dubai—one of the United Arab Emirates—between 2000 and 2011. Taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer on NASA's Terra satellite, each image is produced from visible and infrared light where bare desert is tan, plant-covered land is red, water is black and urban areas are silver. || ", "hits": 105 }, { "id": 10838, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10838/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-12-13T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Mining Canada's Oil Sands", "description": "With the rising cost of oil in the past decade, mining oil sands has become a profitable endeavor. Oil sands consist of sand, clay and other minerals coated in water and thick, viscous oil called bitumen (also known as asphalt). To get usable oil from the sands, producers have to separate the bitumen from the sand using very hot water, and then process the bitumen into crude oil. This process is expensive, energy-intensive and rough on the local environment. Perhaps nowhere is it easier to see the growth of the oil sands industry than along the Athabasca River in Alberta, Canada. The region holds the world's largest known oil sands deposit, with a capacity to produce 174.5 billion barrels of oil—2.5 million barrels of oil per day for 186 years. Where the sands are close to the surface, they are extracted in large open pit mines. Captured by USGS-NASA Landsat satellites between 1984 and 2011, these images show the expansion of the pit mines. || ", "hits": 51 }, { "id": 10864, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10864/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-11-17T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Yellowstone's Burn Scars", "description": "A combination of lightning, drought and human activity caused fires to scorch more than one-third of Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1988. Within a year, burn scars cast a sharp outline on the 793,880 acres affected by fire, distinguishing wide sections of recovering forest, meadows, grasslands and wetlands from unburned areas of the park. After more than two decades, satellite instruments can still detect these scars from space. In the time-lapse video below, a collection of false-color images collected by USGS-NASA Landsat satellites from 1987 to 2011 show the burning and gradual regeneration of Yellowstone following the 1988 fire season. Watch as burn scars (dark red) quickly replace large expanses of healthy green vegetation (dark green) by 1989. Notice how the scars slowly fade over time as new vegetation begins to grow and heal the landscape. || ", "hits": 83 }, { "id": 10699, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10699/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-12-10T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Urban Heat Island AGU 2010", "description": "Video and animations of the Urban Heat Island Effect with Ping Zhang and Marc Imhoff created for the AGU conference 2010. || ", "hits": 30 }, { "id": 10434, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10434/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-05-06T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Earth Observatory 10 Year Anniversary", "description": "April 29, 2009, marked the tenth anniversary of the launch of NASA's Earth Observatory. For the last decade, the Earth Observatory has been using the stunning images and data provided by NASA satellites to tell the story of our planet and the scientists who are working to help us understand it. || ", "hits": 42 }, { "id": 2916, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2916/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2004-02-16T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Earth At Night (WMS)", "description": "This image of Earth's city lights was created with data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS). Originally designed to view clouds by moonlight, the OLS is also used to map the locations of permanent lights on the Earth's surface.The brightest areas of the Earth are the most urbanized, but not necessarily the most populated. (Compare western Europe with China and India.) Cities tend to grow along coastlines and transportation networks. Even without the underlying map, the outlines of many continents would still be visible. The United States interstate highway system appears as a lattice connecting the brighter dots of city centers. In Russia, the Trans-Siberian railroad is a thin line stretching from Moscow through the center of Asia to Vladivostok. The Nile River, from the Aswan Dam to the Mediterranean Sea, is another bright thread through an otherwise dark region.Even more than 100 years after the invention of the electric light, some regions remain thinly populated and unlit. Antarctica is entirely dark. The interior jungles of Africa and South America are mostly dark, but lights are beginning to appear there. Deserts in Africa, Arabia, Australia, Mongolia, and the United States are poorly lit as well (except along the coast), along with the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, and the great mountains of the Himalaya. || ", "hits": 469 }, { "id": 2396, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2396/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-03-06T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "The Lights of Earth: United States", "description": "The Lights of Earth can be seen from space. Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the seaboards of Europe, the eastern United States, and Japan. Many large cities are located near rivers or oceans so that they can exchange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly dark areas include the central parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The above image is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures made by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) currently operates four satellites carrying the Operational Linescan System (OLS) in low-altitude polar orbits. Three of these satellites record nighttime data. The DMSP-OLS has a unique capability to detect low levels of visible-near infrared (VNIR) radiance at night. With the OLS 'VIS' band data it is possible to detect clouds illuminated by moonlight, plus lights from cities, towns, industrial sites, gas flares, and ephemeral events such as fires and lightning-illuminated clouds. The Nighttime Lights of the World data set is compiled from the October 1994 - March 1995 DMSP nighttime data collected when moonlight was low. Using the OLS thermal infrared band, areas containing clouds were removed and the remaining area used in the time series. || ", "hits": 87 }, { "id": 2397, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2397/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2002-03-06T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "The Lights of Earth: Full Spin", "description": "The Lights of Earth can be seen from space. Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the seaboards of Europe, the eastern United States, and Japan. Many large cities are located near rivers or oceans so that they can exchange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly dark areas include the central parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The above image is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures made by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) currently operates four satellites carrying the Operational Linescan System (OLS) in low-altitude polar orbits. Three of these satellites record nighttime data. The DMSP-OLS has a unique capability to detect low levels of visible-near infrared (VNIR) radiance at night. With the OLS 'VIS' band data it is possible to detect clouds illuminated by moonlight, plus lights from cities, towns, industrial sites, gas flares, and ephemeral events such as fires and lightning-illuminated clouds. The Nighttime Lights of the World data set is compiled from the October 1994 - March 1995 DMSP nighttime data collected when moonlight was low. Using the OLS thermal infrared band, areas containing clouds were removed and the remaining area used in the time series. || ", "hits": 22 }, { "id": 2328, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2328/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2001-12-12T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Terra/CERES View of the Earth", "description": "Data sets from the Terra/CERES instrument || Outgoing Longwave Radiation (Average May 11-25, 2000) || ceres_olr_20010511_25_avg.jpg (1800x1098) [414.4 KB] || ceres_olr_20010511_25_avg_web.jpg (320x195) [12.7 KB] || ceres_olr_20010511_25_avg_thm.png (80x40) [5.5 KB] || ceres_olr_20010511_25_avg_web_searchweb.jpg (320x180) [89.5 KB] || ceres_olr_20010511_25_avg.tif (1800x1098) [941.4 KB] || ", "hits": 19 }, { "id": 2276, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2276/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2001-10-19T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Earth at Night 2001", "description": "This is what the Earth looks like at night. Can you find your favorite country or city? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the seaboards of Europe, the eastern United States, and Japan. Many large cities are located near rivers or oceans so that they can exchange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly dark areas include the central parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The above image is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures made by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) currently operates four satellites carrying the Operational Linescan System (OLS) in low-altitude polar orbits. Three of these satellites record nighttime data. The DMSP-OLS has a unique capability to detect low levels of visible-near infrared (VNIR) radiance at night. With the OLS 'VIS' band data it is possible to detect clouds illuminated by moonlight, plus lights from cities, towns, industrial sites, gas flares, and ephemeral events such as fires and lightning-illuminated clouds.The Nighttime Lights of the World data set is compiled from the October 1994 - March 1995 DMSP nighttime data collected when moonlight was low. Using the OLS thermal infrared band, areas containing clouds were removed and the remaining area used in the time series. This animation is derived from an image created by Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon from data provided by Christopher Elvidge of the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center. || ", "hits": 112 } ] }