Follow this link to skip to the main content
NASA NASA NASA Twitter Facebook RSS News Feed Subscribe to Newsletter National Aeronautics and Space Administration Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet National Aeronautics and Space Administration
PlanetWatch
Home
May 2011: Webby Winner 'Best Science Site' Award  
Earth Day Wallpaper

In the words of Carl Sagan, "The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena." But to us, it's everything. The place where we live, love, work and play. The place where we are born and where we die. From space, Earth is big, blue and beautiful; fragile and inspiring. It's the only planet we've ever been to. In honor of Earth Day, take a moment to enjoy some spectacular images of our home, available for download, in our gallery below. And take a moment to appreciate the only home we've ever known.


This image, showing tidal flats and channels on Long Island, in the Bahamas, was taken by an Expedition 26 crew member onboard the International Space Station. The islands of the Bahamas in the Caribbean Sea are situated on large platforms made mainly from carbonate sediments ringed by fringing reefs Ᾱ the islands themselves are only the parts of the platform currently exposed above sea level. The sediments are formed mostlyfrom the skeletal remains of organisms settling to the sea floor; over geologic time, these sediments will consolidate to form carbonate sedimentary rocks such as limestone. Darker blue shows deeper water, while light blue-green shows shallow water on the tidal flat. The continually exposed parts of the island are seen in brown, a result of soil formation and vegetation growth (left).

view image in lightbox click on image above to view in lightbox
LATEST IMAGE: Long Island, Bahamas
This image, showing tidal flats and channels on Long Island, in the Bahamas, was taken by an Expedition 26 crew member onboard the International Space Station. The islands of the Bahamas in the Caribbean Sea are situated on large platforms made mainly from carbonate sediments ringed by fringing reefs — the islands themselves are only the parts of the platform currently exposed above sea level. The sediments are formed mostlyfrom the skeletal remains of organisms settling to the sea floor; over geologic time, these sediments will consolidate to form carbonate sedimentary rocks such as limestone. Darker blue shows deeper water, while light blue-green shows shallow water on the tidal flat. The continually exposed parts of the island are seen in brown, a result of soil formation and vegetation growth (left).

Download image: 1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200.
Credit: Image taken by an Expedition 26 crew member onboard the International Space Station, courtesy of NASA.


MORE WALLPAPER IMAGES
Phytoplankton bloom off western Iceland; 24 June, 2010. Taken by the Aqua satellite.

Phytoplankton bloom

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 Lake Chad, Africa; February 7 and 11, 2004. Once serving as part of the floor for a much larger Lake Chad, the area now known as the Bodele Depression, located at the southern edge of the Sahara Desert in north central Africa, is slowly being transformed into a desert landscape. In the mid-1960s, Lake Chad was about the size of Lake Erie. But persistent drought conditions, coupled with increased demand for freshwater for irrigation, have reduced Lake Chad to about 5 percent of its former size. As the waters receded, the silts and sediments resting on the lakebed were left to dry in the scorching African sun. The small grains of the silty sand are easily swept up by the strong wind gusts that occasionally blow over the region. Once heaved aloft, the Bodeledust can be carried for hundreds or even thousands of kilometers. <br> The remnants of Lake Chad appear in olive-green amid the tan and light brown hues of the surrounding landscape where the countries of Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon all share borders. The Bodele Depression was the source of some very impressive dust storms that swept over West Africa and the Cape Verde Islands in February 2004, the date of this image.

Lake Chad

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 Like rivers of liquid water, glaciers flow downhill, with tributaries joining to form larger rivers. But where water rushes, ice crawls. As a result, glaciers gather dust and dirt, and bear long-lasting evidence of past movements. Alaska’s Susitna Glacier reveals some of its long, grinding journey in this image, taken from space on August 27, 2009. The satellite image combines infrared, red and green wavelengths to form a false-color picture. Vegetation is red and the glacier’s surface is marbled with dirt-free blue ice and dirt-coated brown ice. Infusions of relatively clean ice push in from tributaries in the north. The glacier surface appears especially complicated near the center of the image, where a tributary has pushed the ice in the main glacier slightly southward. In the lower left corner of this image, meltwater lakes can be seen on top of the ice.

Susitna Glacier

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 Vivid colors and bizarre shapes come together in this artistic, fantastical image, taken from space on June 15, 2005. The labyrinth of exotic features was spotted along the edge of Russia's Chaunskaya Bay (shown by the vivid blue half circle) in northeastern Siberia. Two major rivers, the Chaun and Palyavaam, flow into the bay, which in turn opens into the Arctic Ocean. Ribbon lakes and bogs are present throughout the area, created by depressions left by receding glaciers.

Siberian ribbons

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 Image taken by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper instrument onboard the Landsat-7 satellite. Source: <a href='http://landsat.usgs.gov/gallery_view.php?category=blueflag&thesort=mainTitle' target='_blank'>U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat Missions Gallery</a>, "Louisiana Silt," U.S. Department of the Interior / USGS.

Louisiana silt

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
Byrd Glacier is a 15-mile- (24-kilometer-) wide, 100-mile- (161-kilometer-) long ice stream that plunges through a deep valley in the Transatlantic Mountains and into the Ross Ice Shelf. It moves towards the sea at a rate of about half a mile (0.8 kilometers) per year. This snapshot of the glacier was taken on January 11, 2000.

Byrd Glacier

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 MANAM VOLCANO: Manam Volcano in Papua New Guinea, as seen from space on June 16, 2010. Located 13 kilometers (8 miles) off the coast of mainland Papua New Guinea, Manam forms an island 10 kilometers (6 miles) wide. It is a stratovolcano. The volcano has two summit craters, and although both are active, most historical eruptions have arisen from the southern crater. On June 16, the volcano released a thin, faint plume as clouds clustered at the volcano's summit. Rivulets of brown rock interrupt the carpet of green vegetation on the volcano’s slopes. White clouds partially obscure the satellite’s view of Manam. The clouds may be the result of water vapor from the volcano, but they may also have formed independently of volcanic activity. The volcanic plume appears as a thin blue-gray veil extending toward the northwest over the Bismarck Sea.

Manam Volcano

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 The United States' first spacewalk, made by Ed White on June 3, 1965 during the Gemini 4 mission. On the third orbit, White opened his hatch and used a hand-held manuevering oxygen-jet gun to push himself out of the capsule. After the first three minutes the fuel ran out and White manuevered by twisting his body and pulling on the tether. His extra-vehicular activity started over the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii and lasted 23 minutes, ending over the Gulf of Mexico. The photograph was taken by commander James McDivitt.

Space odyssey

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 TO BOLDLY GO: February 12, 1984: Mission specialist Bruce McCandless II ventures further away from the confines and safety of his ship than any previous astronaut has ever been. This space first was made possible by the Manned Manuevering Unit or MMU, a nitrogen jet-propelled backpack. After a series of test maneuvers inside and above Challenger's payload bay, McCandless went 'free-flying' to a distance of 320 feet away from the Orbiter. This stunning orbital panorama view shows McCandless out there amongst the black and blue of Earth and space.

To boldly go

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 THE SKY'S THE LIMIT: The beauty of Earth's atmosphere and the setting sun. Photo taken by an Expedition-15 crewmember on the International Space Station on June 3, 2007.

The sky's the limit

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
NIGHT LIGHTS: Earth's city lights as seen from space. The brightest areas of the Earth are the most urbanized, but not necessarily the most populated. More than a century after the invention of the electric light, many parts of the planet remain thinly populated and unlit. Image created with data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System.

Night lights

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 ENDEAVOUR: Some of the most breathtaking views of Earth taken from space are those that capture our planet's limb. When viewed from the side, the Earth looks like a flat circle, and the atmosphere appears like a halo around it. This edge of the atmosphere is known as the limb. Viewed from space, the image of this luminous envelope of gases shielding life on our planet from the dark, cold space beyond rarely fails to fascinate us. What makes this image even more fascinating is the added silhouette of the space shuttle Endeavour. The orange layer seen is the troposphere, where all of the weather and clouds that we typically experience are created and contained. The troposphere gives way to the whitish stratosphere and then mesosphere. This image was captured by an astronaut prior to Endeavour's rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station on February 9, 2010.

Endeavour

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 WINDOW TO THE WORLD: Parts of the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea as seen from the International Space Station 220 miles above Earth, from the Cupola window. The image was taken on November 9, 2010 by one of the Expedition-25 crew members using a 16-millimeter f/2.8D lens, which gives the image a fish-eye effect.

Window to the world

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 TV DEBUT: The first television picture of Earth from space. Image taken by TIROS 1 on April 1, 1960.

TV debut

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 MOON FRAME: Earth and its Moon are nicely framed in this image taken from the aft windows of the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1998. Discovery, on mission STS-95, was flying over the Atlantic Ocean at the time this image was taken.

Moon frame

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
BLUE MARBLE: This spectacular 'blue marble' image is the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer (0.4 square miles) of our planet. Much of the information contained in this image came from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the Terra satellite. Visualization date: August 2, 2002.

Blue marble

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 FLOATING FREE: A space suit floats freely away from the International Space Station in a scene reminiscent of a sci-fi movie. But this time, no investigation is needed. The suit is actually the world's latest satellite and was launched on February 3, 2006. Dubbed SuitSat-1, the unneeded Russian Orlan spacesuit filled mostly with old clothes was fitted with a radio transmitter and released to orbit the Earth.

Floating free

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 PATAGONIA BLOOMS: Off the coast of Argentina, strong ocean currents stirred up a colorful brew of floating nutrients and microscopic plant life just in time for the summer solstice. Image taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on December 21, 2010.

Patagonia blooms

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 WALLED OFF: In an area north of the city of Al-Basrah, Iraq, which borders Iran, a former wetland has been drained and walled off. Now littered with minefields and gun emplacements, it is a staging area for military exercises. This false-color composite image was made using near-infrared, red and green wavelengths of light. Taken by Landsat 7 on January 24, 2001.

Walled off

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 MEANDERING MISSISSIPPI: Small, blocky shapes of towns, fields, and pastures surround the graceful swirls and whorls of the Mississippi River. Countless oxbow lakes and cutoffs accompany the meandering river south of Memphis, Tennessee, on the border between Arkansas and Mississippi, USA. The 'mighty Mississippi' is the largest river system in North America. Image taken by Landsat 7 on May 28, 2003.

Meandering Mississippi

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
CARIBBEAN LUXURY: The Caicos Islands in the northern Caribbean are a popular tourist attraction, renowned for their beautiful beaches, clear waters, scuba diving, and luxury resorts. The islands lie primarily along the northern perimeter of the submerged Caicos Bank (turquoise), a shallow limestone platform formed of sand, algae, and coral reefs covering 2,370 square miles (6,140 square kilometers). Image taken by Landsat 7 on April 24, 2003.

Caribbean luxury

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 GUINEA-BISSAU COAST: Guinea-Bissau is a small country in West Africa. Complex patterns can be seen in the shallow waters along its coastline, where silt carried by the Geba and other rivers washes out into the Atlantic Ocean. Image taken by Landsat 7 on December 1, 2000.

Guinea-Bissau coast

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 SHIP TRACKS: 'Ship tracks' above the northern Pacific Ocean. These patterns are produced when fine particles from ship exhaust float into a moist layer of atmosphere. The particles seed new clouds or attract water from existing cloud particles. Image taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite on July 3, 2010.

Ship tracks

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 BOMBETOKA BAY: Bombetoka Bay in northwestern Madagascar is an inlet of Mozambique Channel, and is at the mouth of the Betsiboka River. Just downstream is the second largest port of Madagascar, the town of Mahajanga, a road terminus and trade center that exports sugar, coffee, spices, cassava, vegetable oils, timber and vanilla. The surrounding area abounds in extensive coffee plantations. Simulated natural color image taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on August 23, 2000.

Bombetoka Bay

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 VAN GOGH FROM SPACE: In the style of Van Gogh's painting 'Starry Night,' massive congregations of greenish phytoplankton swirl in the dark water around Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea. Phytoplankton are microscopic marine plants that form the first link in nearly all ocean food chains. Population explosions, or blooms, of phytoplankton, like the one shown here, occur when deep currents bring nutrients up to sunlit surface waters, fueling the growth and reproduction of these tiny plants. Image taken by Landsat 7 on July 13, 2005.

Van Gogh from space

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
GEORGIA PATCHWORK: The history of sea islands in the Altamaha River delta on the coast of Georgia can be seen in this image. The outlines of long-lost plantation rice fields, canals, dikes and other inlets are clearly defined. Salt marshes are shown in red, while dense cypress and live oak tree canopies are seen in yellow-greens. Image taken by the Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) on March 9, 2001.

Georgia patchwork

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 TIBETAN DEPTHS: Dagze Co (Lake) is one of many inland lakes in Tibet. In glacial times, the region was considerably wetter, and lakes were correspondingly much larger. This is evident by the numerous fossil shorelines that circle the lake, and attest to the presence of a larger, deeper lake. Changes in climate have resulted in greater aridity of the Tibetan Plateau, and drying up of the lakes. Image taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on October 8, 2001.

Tibetan depths

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 ALASKAN SHIMMER<br><br>The tongue of the Malaspina Glacier, the largest glacier in Alaska, fills most of this image. The Malaspina lies west of Yakutat Bay and covers 1,500 square miles (about 3,880 square kilometers). Image taken by Landsat 7 on August 31, 2000.

Alaskan shimmer

1920 x 1200 | 1600 x 1200
 
 
USA Gov Global Climate Change is produced by the Earth Science Communications Team at

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology
Site Editor:   Amber Jenkins
Manager:   Randal Jackson
Webmaster:   Cecelia Lawshe
Jet Propulsion Laboratory | Earth Observatory | Climate Change FAQ | Feedback | Site Map | Privacy | Awards and Credits