A lunette dune fringing this dried Australian lake preserves relics from ancient times, while today’s grazing patterns create sharp visible contrasts on the land.
An astronaut’s sweeping nighttime photograph of Namibia and South Africa reveals the region’s lighted communities, many of which are centered around mining.
Perth, the only city along the country’s western coastline with more than 1 million people, displays widespread urban infrastructure alongside the Swan and Canning rivers.
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.
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.
These maps depict monthly total rainfall around the world. Rainfall is the primary source of fresh water for humans, plants, and animals. Rain also moves heat between the atmosphere, oceans, and land.
People have developed systems to harvest and store energy from sources such as wind, sunlight, and tidal action. Many of these installations are visible from orbit.
From ground-level ozone to particulate matter to nitrogen dioxide, an array of gasses and particles can affect the air people breathe, with implications for human health.
Land surface temperatures rise and fall with the heat of the Sun, and they represent how hot or cold the surface would feel to touch. These maps show daytime land temperatures as measured from space.
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.
In addition to making rain and snow, clouds can have a warming or cooling influence depending on their altitude, type, and when they form. These maps show what fraction of an area was cloudy each month.
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.
Whether started by humans (farming, logging, or accidents) or by nature (lightning), fires are always burning somewhere on Earth. These maps show the locations of fires burning around the world each month.
Whether sparked by lightning, intentional land-clearing, or human-caused accidents, wildland fires are burning longer and more often in some areas as the world warms.