Night-shining clouds high in the atmosphere over the southern polar region appear in shades of blue and orange in this astronaut photo from January 30, 2010.
Published Feb 22, 2010
Primarily designed to give astronauts a way to see the outside of the ISS, it also provides stunning panoramic views of Earth and space.
Published Feb 20, 2010
This astronaut photo from January 4, 2010, shows meander scars and oxbow lakes in the floodplain of the Rio Negro in South America.
Published Feb 15, 2010
This astronaut photograph illustrates three open-pit copper mines located west-northwest of the town of Green Valley, Arizona.
Published Feb 8, 2010
Taken January 13, 2010, this astronaut photograph shows two artificial archipelagos along the Dubai coast: Palm Jumeirah and The World. The image also shows the 800-meter-tall Bhurj Khalifa high rise building.
Published Feb 1, 2010
A pale, dry riverbed cuts through the red dunes of the Namib Sand Sea.
Published Jan 25, 2010
Taken December 16, 2009, this astronaut photograph shows the greater metropolitan area of Bridgetown, Barbados. Gray-and-white urban areas along the coast contrast with green vegetation inland.
Published Jan 18, 2010
This astronaut photo from December 15, 2009, shows evaporation ponds in the Atacama Desert, where brines are evaporated to concentrate lithium salts.
Published Jan 4, 2010
Pale fields of sand dunes are interspersed with deep green, mangrove-lined streams on the southern Baja Peninsula.
Published Jan 1, 2010
Layers of dunes march across a sand sea in the east-central Tenéré Desert of Niger in this astronaut photo from December 1, 2009.
Published Dec 28, 2009
An extreme sideways viewing angle and the mirror-like reflection of sunlight off water creates a dramatic astronaut photo of clouds over Italy’s Calabrian Peninsula.
Published Dec 21, 2009
This astronaut photo shows the blue-green waters of Lake Ilopango, which fills the caldera of a volcano in El Salvador that last erupted in 1879.
Published Dec 14, 2009
Bright white waves break along the fringing beaches of the Savage Islands in these astronaut photos from October 22, 2009.
Published Nov 23, 2009
Thunderstorms and other interesting clouds are captured in this astronaut photo over the Amazon Basin on October 6, 2009.
Published Nov 9, 2009
This astronaut photograph from October 16, 2009, shows Arequipa—Peru’ “White City”on the flanks of the towering El Misti Volcano.
Published Nov 2, 2009
An oblique photo of Montserrat Island taken by astronauts captures an eruption from the island’s Soufrière Hills Volcano on October 11, 2009.
Published Oct 19, 2009
The smoke plume from the Arnica Fire is reflected in Yellowstone Lake in this astronaut photo from September 24, 2009.
Published Oct 12, 2009
This astronaut photograph shows the merged outlet of two glaciers within the deep fjords of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field.
Published Oct 5, 2009
This nighttime astronaut photo shows the city lights of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates on September 11, 2009.
Published Sep 28, 2009
In this astronaut photo, the mirror-like reflection of sunlight off water makes the Trombetas River and Lake Erepecu in the Brazilian Amazon stand out from the deep green forest.
Published Sep 21, 2009
This astronaut photo of Israel’s Lake Tiberias (Sea of Galilee) shows an irregular patchwork of green and brown fields surrounding the lake. The Jordan River is visible flowing in at the northern end of the lake and out at the southern end.
Published Sep 14, 2009
The otherworldly footprint of black basaltic lava creates a striking landscape at Black Point Lava Flow in northern Arizona, seen in this photograph taken from the International Space Station.
Published Sep 7, 2009
The urban landscape of Sevastopol, on the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea, is featured in this astronaut photo from August 5, 2009.
Published Aug 24, 2009
In the astronaut photo from August 5, 2009, bright white glaciers cap the summit of Oregon’s Mount Hood, while gray volcanic deposits line the rivers that drain the mountain, and green forests cover the lower slopes.
Published Aug 17, 2009
Forty years after the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this image of the descent stage of the Eagle lunar module.
Published Jul 20, 2009
A fortuitous orbit of the International Space Station in 2009 offered the astronauts a striking view of the volcano in an early stage of eruption.
Published Jun 22, 2009
This stunning photo came back to Earth with the Apollo 8 astronauts in late December 1968.
Published Nov 27, 2008
Located in the Bahia de los Angeles, Isla Coronado sits in the Gulf of California, just off the eastern shoreline of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. The island is approximately 7 kilometers long, and it is dominated by Volcan Coronado on the northern end.
Published Oct 20, 2008
Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island, is located along the coastline of Queensland, Australia, and it includes Great Sandy National Park. The island was designated a World Heritage site in 1992, in part due to its outstanding preservation of geological processes related to sand dune formation.
Published Oct 13, 2008
Bouvet Island is known as the most remote island in the world; Antarctica, over 1600 kilometers (994 miles) to the south, is the nearest land mass. Located near the junction between the South American, African, and Antarctic tectonic plates, the island is mostly formed from a shield volcano—a broad, gently sloping cone formed by thin, fluid lavas—that is almost entirely covered by glaciers.
Published Oct 6, 2008
