Earth and Space Observations

Images showcasing satellite data and scientific instruments monitoring atmospheric and geological phenomena, including El Niño and Mars topography.

Regional Topographic Model of the Hellas Basin

This image displays wind measurements taken by the satellite-borne NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) during the last 10 days of May 1997, showing the relationship between the ocean and the atmosphere at the onset of the 1997-98 El Nio condition.

The heritage for investigations with the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover comes from NASA's Odyssey orbiter.

Regional Topographic Model of the Hellas Basin

NASA's EMIT Mission Generates Image Cube of Surface Minerals in Southwestern Libya. The front panel of this image cube features the true-color view of an area in southwest Libya observed by NASA's Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) imaging spectrometer, which orbits the planet aboard the International Space Station. The side panels depict the spectral fingerprint for every point in the image, which shows an area about 500 miles (800 kilometers) south of Tripoli. The instrument works by measuring reflected solar energy from Earth across hundreds of wavelengths, from the visible to the infrared range of the spectrum. The intensity of the reflected light varies by wavelength based on the material. Scientists use these patterns, called spectral fingerprints, to identify surface minerals and pinpoint their locations on a map. The cube is among the first created by scientists with EMIT data. Analysis of the patterns indicated that the surface contains kaolinite, a light-c

These two images compare topographic maps of the giant asteroid Vesta as discerned by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (top) and as seen by NASA's Dawn spacecraft (bottom). Hubble has been in an orbit around Earth, while Dawn orbited Vesta from 2011 to 2012.

This map shows the gravity field of the moon as measured by NASA's GRAIL mission. The viewing perspective, known as a Mercator projection, shows the far side of the moon in the center and the nearside (as viewed from Earth) at either side.

This 72-color near-global map of the Red Planet was captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) using its Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, or CRISM. The yellow square indicates the Nili Fossae region of Mars, which is highlighted in six views in PIA25364. The map is one of the last major datasets CRISM will ever produce; the instrument will be decommissioned by the end of 2022. Data for the 6.3-gigapixel map was collected over 11 years of CRISM operations. The instrument arrived at Mars with three cryocoolers that allowed it to see in a range of wavelengths, including infrared; in 2017, the last of those cryocoolers stopped working, severely limiting the number of wavelengths CRISM could see.

A 3-D View of Saturn's Clouds and Hazes

The first data from RainCube, a tiny weather satellite. RainCube is a prototype for a possible fleet of future small satellite missions that can track precipitation from space. RainCube sees objects by using radar, much as a bat uses sonar. The satellite's umbrella -- like antenna sends out chirps, or specialized radar signals, that bounce off raindrops, bringing back a picture of what the inside of the storm looks like. This graph shows a storm over the mountains in Mexico in late August 2018, as measured by RainCube's radar. The data shows a vertical snapshot of the storm -- the bright white line shows the ground, while the bright colors around it show the intensity of the rainfall, as well as the more reflective areas of the terrain. Brighter colors, like yellow or red, show areas of higher reflectivity, e.g. heavier rain.

TES overlayed on MOLA DEM

From Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River (at the top of the image) and extending to Long Island (at the bottom) this image shows the varied topography of eastern New York State and parts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

This map of Mars indicates locations of new craters that have excavated ice (blue) and those that have not (red). Albedo information comes from NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, and the map comes from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter.

This graphic shows Martian atmospheric temperature data related to seasonal patterns in occurrence of large regional dust storms. The data shown here were collected by the Mars Climate Sounder instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

A magnitude 6.6 earthquake struck a sparsely inhabited area of southeast Iran on March 14, 1998, at 11:10 p.m. local time.

MOLA Global Roughness Map of Mars

The Temperature of Endurance

Large abundances of aerosols, or airborne particulates, over the low-lying plains of northeastern India appear in dramatic contrast with the relatively pristine air of the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau in this image from NASA's Terra satellite acquired on

Gypsum Dunes North of Phoenix Landing Site

This graphic shows the computer simulation of a black hole from start to finish. Plasma is falling slowly toward the black hole in a (at the upper left). The plasma has a magnetic field, shown by the white lines.

Clumpy Moons

Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) Measures the Depths of Mercury's Craters

This figure shows data from the six channels of the microwave radiometer (MWR) instrument onboard NASA's Juno spacecraft. The data were collected in the mission's sixth science orbit (referred to as perijove 7 ), during which the spacecraft passed over Jupiter's Great Red Spot. The top layer in the figure is a visible light image from the mission's JunoCam instrument, provided for context. The MWR instrument enables Juno to see deeper into Jupiter than any previous spacecraft or Earth-based observations. Each MWR channel peers progressively deeper below the visible cloud tops. Channel 1 is sensitive to longer microwave wavelengths; each of the other channels is sensitive to progressively shorter wavelengths. The large-scale structure of the Great Red Spot is visible in the data as deep into Jupiter as MWR can observe.

Optical Coherence Topography (OCT) image, enabling the detailed analysis of the retina and macula structures. The left eye is visible on this image.

This global view of Mars in intermediate-energy, or epithermal, neutrons was created from observations by NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft.

This perspective view of Ishtar Terra was derived from data obtained by NASA's Pioneer Venus spacecraft's altimetry radar instrument.

These 19 global panels show the %-year seasonal-average distribution of atmospheric aerosol amount across Africa and the Atlantic Ocean from data captured by NASA's Terra spacecraft.

MGS Thermal Emission Spectrometer Image

This sequence of false-color images shows the formation of a Bose-Einstein condensate in the Cold Atom Laboratory prototype at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the temperature gets progressively closer to absolute zero.

Movie of Mercury's Magnetic Equator Versus Longitude

This graphic, constructed from data obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, shows the percentage of cloud coverage across the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. The color scale from black to yellow signifies no cloud coverage to complete cloud coverage.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has spotted a glowing patch of ultraviolet light near Saturn's north pole that marks the presence of an electrical circuit that connects Saturn with its moon Enceladus.

This infrared image, taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in late June, 1996, of Jupiter's Great Red Spot has different colors than what you normally see.

Advanced finite element models are used to study three-dimensional, time-dependent flow and segregation in crystal growth systems. In this image of a prototypical model for melt and crystal growth, pathlines at one instant in time are shown for the flow of heated liquid silicon in a cylindrical container. The container is subjected to g-jitter disturbances along the vertical axis. A transverse magnetic field is applied to control them. Such computations are extremely powerful for understanding melt growth in microgravity where g-jitter drives buoyant flows. The simulation is part of the Theoretical Analysis of 3D, Transient Convection and Segregation in Microgravity Bridgman Crystal Growth investigation by Dr. Jeffrey J. Derby of the University of Mirnesota, Minneapolis.

Saturn's Radio Period Crossover

This image shows the first measurements taken by NASA's Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) from aboard the International Space Station at 7 51 p.m. PDT (10 51 p.m. EDT) on July 27, 2022, as it passed over western Australia. The image at the front of the cube shows a mix of materials in western Australia, including exposed soil (brown), vegetation (dark green), agricultural fields (light green), a small river, and clouds. The rainbow colors extending through the main part of the cube are the wavelengths of light (in nanometers), or spectral fingerprints, from corresponding spots in the front image. The line graph (Figure 1) shows spectral fingerprints for a sample of soil, vegetation, and a river from the image cube. Radiance indicates the amount of each wavelength of light reflected from a substance. Researchers use the combination of radiance and wavelength to determine a substance's spectral fingerprint. Developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern Ca

This schematic shows our solar bubble moving through nearby interstellar space, or the space between stars.

This stereo anaglyph from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit looks toward the northeast across 'Endurance Crater' in Mars' Meridiani Planum region. 3D glasses are necessary to view this image.

Maps of Titan - January 2009

Tupan Caldera, a volcanic crater on Jupiter's moon Io, has a relatively cool area, possibly an island, in its center, as indicated by infrared imagery from NASA's Galileo spacecraft during an Oct. 16, 2001 flyby.

This annotated image highlights the location of the new heat source close to the south pole of Io. The image was generated from data collected on Dec. 16, 2017, by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA's Juno mission when the spacecraft was about 290,000 miles (470,000 kilometers) from the Jovian moon. The scale to the right of image depicts of the range of temperatures displayed in the infrared image. Higher recorded temperatures are characterized in brighter colors -- lower temperatures in darker colors. An animation is available at

EMIT Instrument's First Light. The mineral map shows an area of southwestern Libya in the Sahara Desert observed by NASA's Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) mission as it maps the world's mineral dust sources, gathering information about surface composition as the instrument, designed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, orbits aboard the International Space Station. The instrument works by measuring reflected solar energy from Earth across hundreds of wavelengths from the visible to the infrared range of the spectrum. The intensity of the reflected light varies by wavelength based on the material. Scientists are using these patterns, called spectral fingerprints, to identify surface minerals and pinpoint their locations on a map. The map is among the first produced by scientists with EMIT data. Analysis of the patterns indicate that the surface contains kaolinite, a light-colored clay mineral, and goethite and hematite, two varieties of iron

This image shows Loki, the most powerful volcano in the solar system, which has been constantly active on Jupiter's moon Io. NASA's Galileo spacecraft took these images during its approach to Io on October 10, 1999.

The SeaWinds scatterometer aboard NASA's QuikScat satellite collected the data used to create this colorful image of Cyclone Olaf churning in the South Pacific on February 16, 2005.

Mono- and Polyhydrated Sulfates in Tithonium Chasma

Rates of change in surface temperatures during a martian day indicate differences in particle size in and near 'Bonneville Crater' as shown in this image from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.

The average tropospheric relative humidity from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) onboard NASA's Aqua satellite for the four December-February periods during 2002 through 2005.

MGS Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) - Mars/Earth Relief Comparison

Chromatogram, 3D View

SEM image of a diatom

This global map of Mars was acquired on Aug. 4, 2012, by the Mars Color Imager instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to forecast weather conditions for the entry, descent and landing of NASA's Curiosity rover.

During the first two weeks of April, 2003, numerous fires occurred in eastern Russia and northeast China, and produced a large amount of smoke that rose to form a thick layer of tiny atmospheric particles, or aerosols seen here by NASA's Terra spacecraft.

AIRS Retrieved Temperature Isotherms over Southern Europe viewed from the west, September 8, 2002. The isotherms in this map made from AIRS onboard NASA's Aqua satellite data show regions of the same temperature in the atmosphere.

A Movie of MESSENGER's Observations of Mercury's Exosphere

Exploring Mercury's Plasma Environment

The element potassium, shown on this NASA Mars Odyssey gamma ray spectrometer map of the mid-latitude region of Mars, is a naturally radioactive element and is a minor constituent of rocks on the surface of both Mars and Earth.

Images from Phoenix's MECA Instruments

Io's Gish Bar Volcanic Region in Infrared

Temperature Comparison at Loki

This false-color map from NASA's ARIA project shows the amount of permanent surface movement caused almost entirely by the magnitude 7.8 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal.

Abdominal aortic aneurysm and stent. Three-dimensional computed tomographic inside (CT) scan view of abdominal aortic aneurysm (left) treated with a Stent (right).

Amirani Lava Flow on Io

Sun structure

Sounds of Enceladus

Hydrogen is most abundant in areas with low reflectivity, or albedo, on the giant asteroid Vesta, as shown in this contour map from NASA's Dawn mission.

Global map of crustal thickness of the moon derived from gravity data obtained by NASA's GRAIL spacecraft. The lunar near side is represented on the left hemisphere. The far side is represented in the right hemisphere.

This graphic, released on Dec. 10, 2020, shows the first sea level measurements taken by Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich (S6MF), which launched Nov. 21, 2020. It focuses on the ocean off the southern tip of Africa, where red colors indicate higher sea level relative to blue areas, which are lower. Also included are sea surface height measurements from three other satellites for comparison Jason-3 (JA3), Sentinel-3A (S3A), and Sentinel-3B (S3B).

This map shows the topography of the south polar region of Mars. The elevation of the terrain is shown by colors, with purple and blue representing the lowest areas, and orange and red the highest

NASA's Mars 2020 rover would have capabilities for nested-scale observations and localized composition identification down to microscopic scale.

Titan's Chilly Volcanoes

Monohydrated Sulfates in Aurorae Chaos

NASA's Mars Odyssey produced this gamma ray spectrometer map of the mid-latitude region of Mars is based on gamma-rays from the element silicon, one of the most abundant elements on the surface of both Mars and Earth.

The Tvashtar plume on Io, seen by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and by New Horizons.

Cosmic Rays Liberate Neutrons

This graphic overlays Martian atmospheric temperature data as curtains over an image of Mars taken during a regional dust storm. Temperature data and global image were both recorded on Oct. 18, 2014, by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.

This figure shows the longitude-time variations, averaged between 21 and 22 degrees North, across the middle of the India subcontinent from mid-April to mid-June in a deadly heat wave in India that killed more than 2,300 people.

NASA's Deep Impact's Tempel 1 Mission Update. Images of impact taken with the medium resolution imager. The blue dotted line is the position of the spectrometer's slit.

This image of Loki Patera on Jupiter's volcanic moon Io shows data taken by the near-infrared mapping spectrometer onboard NASA's Galileo spacecraft during its Io flyby on Oct. 10, 1999.

The Sovereign Democratic Republic of the Fiji Islands, commonly known as Fiji, is shown in this image acquired by NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) on February 19, 2000.

Jupiter's aurora on the night side of the planet is seen here at five different wavelengths. Jupiter's bright crescent, which is about half illuminated, is out of view to the right in this image taken on April 2, 1997 by NASA's Galileo orbiter.

This multispectral map of Australia and surrounding seas was obtained by NASAs Galileo spacecraft's Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer shortly after closest approach on Dec. 8, 1990 from an altitude of about 50,000 miles.

Methane on Mars

This map of Pluto, created from images taken from June 27-July 3, 2015, by NASA's New Horizons. This map gives mission scientists an important tool to decipher the complex and intriguing pattern of bright and dark markings on Pluto's surface.

Io's Nighttime Heat

Diagram showing the spectral class and luminosity of stars

This graphic shows tenfold spiking in the abundance of methane in the Martian atmosphere surrounding NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, as detected by a series of measurements made with the Tunable Laser Spectrometer instrument in the rover's laboratory suite.

Entering the Magnetic Bubble

As comets C/2012 S1 (ISON) and the well-known short-period comet 2P/Encke both approached their closest distances to the Sun in November, 2013, they also passed close to the MESSENGER spacecraft orbiting the innermost planet Mercury.

Right on Target-2

Penetration of the sun's rays into the skin. Diagram showing how far the sun's rays penetrate the different layers of skin after passing through the ozone layer and glass

Riyadh, the national capital of Saudi Arabia, is shown in 1972, 1990 and 2000 by NASA's Terra spacecraft.

Saturn's Main Radiation Belt

NASA's EMIT Collects Mineral Maps, Spectral Fingerprints From Nevada. Since NASA's Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) imaging spectrometer was installed on the International Space Station in late July 2022, the EMIT science team has been validating its data against data gathered in 2018 by NASA's Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS). EMIT recently collected data from a mountainous area of Nevada about 130 miles (209 kilometers) northeast of Lake Tahoe. The instrument measures reflected solar energy from Earth across hundreds of wavelengths from the visible to the infrared range of the spectrum. The intensity of the reflected light varies by wavelength based on the material. Scientists use these patterns, called spectral fingerprints, to pinpoint the locations of surface minerals on a map. The top left map shows the region both the EMIT and AVIRIS data sets cover. The center image is a mineral map featuring AVIRIS data. At right is a map generated

This graphic depicts the environmental conditions at Jezero Crater from the day NASA's Perseverance Mars rover landed there - on Feb. 18, 2021, the first Martian day, or sol, of the mission - through Sol 600. The black line indicates a climatological model of atmospheric opaqueness (a measurement known as tau ) over a Martian year. The expected daily insolation, or the amount of Sun's rays reaching the solar panel, is illustrated by the green dotted line. While a year on Earth lasts 365 days, on Mars a year lasts 668 sols.

DALLAS - This computational fluid dynamics CFD image was taken during a series of wind tunnel tests for Blue Origin's next-generation Space Vehicle at Lockheed Martin's High Speed Wind Tunnel Facility in Dallas. The Space Vehicle's innovative biconic shape is designed to provide more cross-range and interior volume than a traditional capsule and weigh less than a winged vehicle. More than 180 wind tunnel tests validated the company's analysis of the Space Vehicle's aerodynamics during descent through the atmosphere and the ability to change its flight path, which could increase the number of available landing opportunities and enhance the vehicle's emergency return capability. In 2011, NASA selected Blue Origin during Commercial Crew Development Round 2 CCDev2) activities for NASAs Commercial Crew Program to mature the design and development of a crew transportation system with the overall goal of accelerating a United States-led capability to the International Space Station. The g

EMIT Methane Spectral Fingerprint. Produced with data from NASA's Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) mission, this image uses two different ways of displaying methane's unique pattern of absorbed infrared light - called a spectral fingerprint. This potent greenhouse gas is estimated to be 80 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. EMIT uses an imaging spectrometer to detect the spectral fingerprints of various materials on Earth's surface and in its atmosphere. Installed on the International Space Station in July 2022, EMIT was originally intended to map the prevalence of minerals in Earth's arid regions, such as the deserts of Africa, Australia, and the Americas. Scientists verified that EMIT could also detect the spectral fingerprints of methane and carbon dioxide exceptionally well when they were checking the accuracy of the image spectrometer's mineral data. The left panel shows an EMIT data cube that spans an area of Turkmen

Measurements of the Martian Winds for Three Seasons

Channelled scablands geologic foundation, illustration

Left NASA Digital Mapping System image of the USS Constellation taken near Punta Arenas, Chile on Nov. 5, 2014.

How to Find Water on the Moon

of 2