Results for: 2009
World of Change: Drought Cycles in Australia
December 11, 2009Drought has taken a severe toll on croplands in Southeast Australia during many years this decade. Read more
NASA's Newest Map of the World
November 18, 2009Why did it take nearly three decades for scientists to create the first global portraits of Earth from NASA's Landsat missions? Read more
World of Change: El Niño, La Niña, and Rainfall
October 23, 2009For many people, El Niño and La Niña mean floods or drought, but the events are actually a warming or cooling of the eastern Pacific Ocean that impacts rainfall. These sea surface temperature and rainfall anomaly images show the direct correlation between ocean temperatures and rainfall during El Niño and La Niña events. Read more
Perspectives: Why EOS Matters, 10 years later
September 8, 2009Nearly a decade ago, ecologist Steve Running described how NASA’s Earth Observing System missions were going to help us answer this crucial question: Is the current human occupancy and activity of planet Earth sustainable? In 2009, he revisited the question, making the case that Earth-observing satellites are more important than ever as humanity begins to deal with a changing climate. Read more
Catalog of Earth Satellite Orbits
September 4, 2009Different orbits give satellites different vantage points for viewing Earth. This fact sheet describes the common Earth satellite orbits and some of the challenges of maintaining them. Read more
World of Change: Severe Storms
August 27, 2009This collection of images featuring the strongest hurricane, cyclone, or typhoon from any ocean during each year of the past decade includes storms both famous—or infamous—and obscure. Read more
Notes from the Field Blog: North Woods, Maine 2009
August 19, 2009NASA's Dr. Jon Ranson is on an expedition in the forests of central Maine to validate recent radar and lidar measurements which will help create more accurate and sensitive sensors to better understand the vegetation of the Earth and to balance the carbon budget. Read more
Flying Steady: Mission Control Tunes Up Aqua's Orbit
August 18, 2009It takes work to maintain a satellite’s orbit. In the spring of 2009, mission controllers pilot NASA's Aqua satellite through a series of orbital maneuvers to correct the angle of the satellite’s flight path. Read more
Notes from the Field Blog: Journey to Galapagos
July 16, 2009Following in Darwin's footsteps, NASA oceanographer Gene Feldman explores the remarkable Galapagos Islands. Read more
Planetary Motion: The History of an Idea That Launched the Scientific Revolution
July 7, 2009Attempts of Renaissance astronomers to explain the puzzling path of planets across the night sky led to modern science’s understanding of gravity and motion. Read more
World of Change: Burn Recovery in Yellowstone
June 30, 2009In 1988, wildfires raced through Yellowstone National Park, consuming hundreds of thousands of acres. This series of Landsat images tracks the landscape’s slow recovery through 2011. Read more
World of Change: Global Biosphere
June 5, 2009Earth would not be the planet that it is without its biosphere, the sum of its life. This series of images illustrates the variations in the average productivity of the global biosphere from 1999 to 2008. Read more
World of Change: Antarctic Ozone Hole
June 1, 2009In the early 1980s, scientists began to realize that CFCs were creating a thin spot—a hole—in the ozone layer over Antarctica every spring. This series of satellite images shows the ozone hole on the day of its maximum depth each year from 1979 through 2010. Read more
World of Change: Amazon Deforestation
May 27, 2009The state of Rondônia in western Brazil is one of the most deforested parts of the Amazon. This series shows deforestation on the frontier in the northwestern part of the state between 2000 and 2010. Read more
World of Change: Antarctic Sea Ice
May 22, 2009Because of differences in geography and climate, Antarctica sea ice extent is larger than the Arctic’s in winter and smaller in summer. Since 1979, Antarctica’s sea ice has increased slightly, but year-to-year fluctuations are large. Read more
World of Change: Shrinking Aral Sea
May 19, 2009A massive irrigation project has devastated the Aral Sea over the past 50 years. These images show the decline of the Southern Aral Sea in the past decade, as well as the first steps of recovery in the Northern Aral Sea. Read more
World of Change: Arctic Sea Ice
May 15, 2009NASA satellites have monitored Arctic sea ice since 1978. Starting in 2002, they observed a sharp decline in sea ice extent. Read more
The World We Avoided by Protecting the Ozone Layer
May 14, 2009An international team of scientists used a state-of-the-art computer model to learn “what might have been” if ozone-destroying chemicals had not been banned through the 1989 Montreal Protocol. Read more
World of Change: Water Level in Lake Powell
May 12, 2009Drought struck southern Utah in the early twenty-first century. The drought’s effects were easily seen in the fluctuating water levels of Lake Powell. Read more
World of Change: Mesopotamia Marshes
May 5, 2009In the years following the Persian Gulf War, Iraqi residents began reclaiming the country’s nearly decimated Mesopotamian marshes. This series of images documents the transformation of the fabled landscape between 2000 and 2009. Read more
World of Change: Solar Activity
April 30, 2009Images of sunspots and UV brightness document the 11-year cycle of solar magnetic activity. The series spans 1999–2010, capturing the most recent solar maximum and minimum, as well as the emergence of solar cycle 24. Read more
Earth Observatory 10th Anniversary
April 29, 2009April 29, 2009, marked the 10th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Earth Observatory Website. Read about the history, accomplishments, and goals of this award-winning Website. Read more
World of Change: Urbanization of Dubai
April 28, 2009To expand the possibilities for beachfront tourist development, Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates, undertook a massive engineering project to create hundreds of artificial islands along its Persian Gulf coastline. Read more
Sea Ice
April 20, 2009Polar sea ice grows and shrinks dramatically each year, driven by seasonal cycles. Habitat for wildlife and harbinger of changing climate, sea ice offers scientists important clues about the state of our planet. Read more
Winter Camp: A Blog from the Greenland Summit
February 20, 2009Lora Koenig, a remote-sensing glaciologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, spent three dark, frigid months supporting research at the National Science Foundation’s Greenland Summit Camp. Near the end of her stay, Koenig emailed the Earth Observatory answers to a few questions about how she wound up in Greenland and what is was like to spend the winter there. Read more
An Ocean Breeze: Mapping Brazil’s Offshore Wind Power Potential
February 3, 2009Searching for alternative sources of energy for his country, one student turned to a NASA satellite to assess the feasibility of offshore wind power in Southeast Brazil. Read more
Climate and Earth’s Energy Budget
January 14, 2009Earth’s temperature depends on how much sunlight the land, oceans, and atmosphere absorb, and how much heat the planet radiates back to space. This fact sheet describes the net flow of energy through different parts of the Earth system, and explains how the planetary energy budget stays in balance. Read more
Browse Topics
World of Change
Satellite images showing how our world— forests, oceans,
cities, even the Sun— has changed in recent decades.
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Blue Marble
Composite satellite images of the entire Earth.
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Earth at Night
The night side of Earth twinkles with light in these composite global and regional views.
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Experiments
Hands-on educational activities.
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Visible Earth
A catalog of NASA images and animations of our home planet.
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NASA Earth Observations
View, download, and analyze imagery of Earth science data.
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NASA Global Climate Change
Vital signs of the planet.
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Earth Science Picture of the Day
Photos of Earth processes and phenomena.
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