Every month, NASA Earth Observatory will offer up a puzzling satellite image here on Earth Matters. The second puzzler is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section below to tell us what ...

Santorini’s Hidden Worlds An explosive eruption thousands of years ago transformed the volcanic island but preserved a Bronze Age town under a layer of ash. Published Jul 10, 2025 Image of the Day ...

Phytoplankton thrive along coastlines and continental shelves, along the equator in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and in high-latitude areas. Winds play a strong role in the distribution of ...

The Earth Observatory shares images and stories about the environment, Earth systems, and climate that emerge from NASA research, satellite missions, and models.

“There’s a debate about how cities affect rainfall,” Shepherd answers. “There are several hypotheses about what is going on, but they primarily involve the urban land use and urban aerosols.” The ...

Giant kelp forests are among Earth’s most productive habitats, but they are ephemeral. Researchers are using Landsat and a host of online friends to figure out where the forests are growing and ...

Joanne Simpson became the first woman Ph.D. meteorologist. She also pioneered studies of cloud models, hurricanes, weather modification, and guided the development of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring ...

Recognizing that different people and businesses treat their lawns differently, she had a computer simulate the effect on the water cycle and carbon cycle of different lawn management techniques. The ...

A few decades ago, the idea of predicting a disease outbreak via satellite was science fiction. But today, researchers can use environmental data to predict when and where some diseases are likely to ...

Updated Sep 9, 2024 World of Change: Columbia Glacier, Alaska Since 1980, the volume of this glacier that spills into the Prince William Sound has shrunk by half. Climate change may have nudged the ...

Global warming is happening now, and scientists are confident that greenhouse gases are responsible. To understand what this means for humanity, it is necessary to understand what global warming is, ...

Take a deep breath. Even if the air looks clear, it’s nearly certain that you’ll inhale tens of millions of solid particles and liquid droplets. These ubiquitous specks of matter are known as aerosols ...