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This simulated natural color image shows the Coco River, between Nicaragua and Honduras, as seen from space on December 5, 2002. As it makes its way to the Caribbean Sea, the Coco River forms the border between the two countries. The coastline, known as the Mosquito Coast, is of low relief and has plentiful water bodies, relic shorelines and high temperatures. Mosquito Coast derives its name from its principal inhabitants, the Miskito Indians, whose name was corrupted into Mosquito by European settlers. The Mosquito Indians, of whom there are several tribes, are short in stature and very dark-skinned. The first European settlement in the Mosquito country started in 1630, when agents of the English-chartered Providence Company established friendly relations with the local inhabitants. The image shown covers an area of 29 x 39 kilometers (18 x 24 miles).
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This simulated natural color image shows the Coco River, between Nicaragua and Honduras, as seen from space on December 5, 2002. As it makes its way to the Caribbean Sea, the Coco River forms the border between the two countries. The coastline, known as the Mosquito Coast, is of low relief and has plentiful water bodies, relic shorelines and high temperatures. Mosquito Coast derives its name from its principal inhabitants, the Miskito Indians, whose name was corrupted into Mosquito by European settlers. The Mosquito Indians, of whom there are several tribes, are short in stature and very dark-skinned. The first European settlement in the Mosquito country started in 1630, when agents of the English-chartered Providence Company established friendly relations with the local inhabitants. The image shown covers an area of 29 x 39 kilometers (18 x 24 miles).
Coco River, Nicaragua and Honduras
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.
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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
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.
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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
Susitna Glacier, Alaska. 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.
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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
In this image, it’s hard to get a sense of scale or of what we’re actually looking at. This picture, taken by the Landsat-5 satellite on 8 April, 1985, shows sand dunes (yellow streaks) that extend from Algeria into Mauritania in northwest Africa. These wind-blown sand ridges make up Erg Iguidi, one of the Sahara’s ‘sand seas’ in which individual dunes are often more than a third of a mile (500 meters) wide and tall.
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Sea of Sand
Sea of sand
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.
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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
This image shows a spinning formation of ice, clouds and low-lying fog off the eastern coast of Greenland. This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on May 14, 2001. This is a false-color composite image made using infrared, red and green wavelengths.
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Whirlpool
Whirlpool
Phytoplankton bloom off western Iceland; 24 June, 2010. Taken by NASA's Aqua satellite.
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Phytoplankton bloom off western Iceland; 24 June, 2010. Taken by the Aqua satellite.
Phytoplankton bloom
This map shows the bright lights of cities and wildfires set against the inky black backdrop of night. The image is actually a composite of satellite data collected over a number of days in April 2012 and October 2012, and is the result of 312 orbits and 2.5 TB of information. The lights seen here are not just from cities; they are also from wildifires, lightning, gas flares and reflected moonlight. Because the image is a composite of several days’ worth of data, fires and other points of light may have been picked up by the satellite and integrated into the composite image even though they were temporary, making some rural locations (such as in Australia) seem brighter than they really are on a typical day.
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Night lights, big cities
Night lights, big cities
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.
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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
This image, taken in February 1984, shows the confluence of the Parana and Paraguay Rivers northeast of the town of Corrientes, in Argentina. The Parana is South America's second largest river (the Amazon being the largest), and the river and its tributaries are important transportation routes for landlocked cities in Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil. Both the Parana and Paraguay Rivers are loaded with sediment; the Paraguay (left) contains a tan sediment and the Parana (right) contains a reddish-brown muddy sediment. As the two rivers merge in the center of the photo and begin to flow southwest, we see how their sediments remain fairly unmixed for many miles downstream. Original high-resolution image here.
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This image, taken in February 1984, shows the confluence of the Parana and Paraguay Rivers northeast of the town of Corrientes, in Argentina. The Parana is South America's second largest river (the Amazon being the largest), and the river and its tributaries are important transportation routes for landlocked cities in Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil. Both the Parana and Paraguay Rivers are loaded with sediment; the Paraguay (left) contains a tan sediment and the Parana (right) contains a reddish-brown muddy sediment. As the two rivers merge in the center of the photo and begin to flow southwest, we see how their sediments remain fairly unmixed for many miles downstream.
Paraná River, Argentina and Paraguay
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.
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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
The Mackenzie River in Canada plays a major role in Arctic climate as warmer fresh water mixes with cold seawater.  This image was taken by the Operational Land Imager on the Landsat 8 satellite on July 18, 2017.
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The Mackenzie River in Canada plays a major role in Arctic climate as warmer fresh water mixes with cold seawater.
Mackenzie River
The sun sets over NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on October 13, 2010.
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Vivid Sunset
Vivid sunset
These are the Anti-Atlas Mountains, part of the Atlas Mountain range in southern Morocco, Africa. The region contains some of the world’s largest and most diverse mineral resources, most of which are still untouched. This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on June 22, 2001. This is a false-color composite image made using shortwave infrared, infrared and red wavelengths.
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Atlas Mountains
Atlas Mountains
Ephemeral Lake Carnegie, in Western Australia, fills with water only during periods of significant rainfall. In dry years, it is reduced to a muddy marsh. This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on May 19, 1999. This is a false-color composite image made using shortwave infrared, infrared and red wavelengths. The image has also been sharpened using the sensor's panchromatic band.
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Lake Carnegie
Lake Carnegie
Byrd Glacier, Antarctica, 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.
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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
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.
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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
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.
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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
Perhaps the most impressive of cloud formations, cumulonimbus (from the Latin for “pile” and “rain cloud”) clouds form due to vigorous convection (rising and overturning) of warm, moist and unstable air. Surface air is warmed by the sun-heated ground surface and rises; if sufficient atmospheric moisture is present, water droplets will condense as the air mass encounters cooler air at higher altitudes. The air mass itself also expands and cools as it rises due to decreasing atmospheric pressure, a process known as adiabatic cooling. This type of convection is common in tropical latitudes year-round and during the summer season at higher latitudes. As water in the rising air mass condenses and changes from a gas to a liquid state, it releases energy to its surroundings, further heating the surrounding air and leading to more convection and rising of the cloud mass to higher altitudes. This leads to the characteristic vertical “towers” associated with cumulonimbus clouds, an excellent example of which is visible in this astronaut photograph. If enough moisture is present to condense and heat the cloud mass through several convective cycles, a tower can rise to altitudes of approximately 10 kilometers at high latitudes and to 20 kilometers in the tropics before encountering a region of the atmosphere known as the tropopause—the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere. The tropopause is characterized by a strong temperature inversion. Beyond the tropopause, the air no longer gets colder as altitude increases. The tropopause halts further upward motion of the cloud mass. The cloud tops flatten and spread into an anvil shape, as illustrated by this astronaut photograph. The photo was taken from a viewpoint that was at an angle from the vertical, rather than looking straight down towards the Earth’s surface. The image, taken while the International Space Station was located over western Africa near the Senegal-Mali border, shows a fully formed anvil cloud with numerous smaller cumulonimbus towers rising near it. The high energy levels of these storm systems typically make them hazardous due to associated heavy precipitation, lightning, high wind speeds and possible tornadoes.
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Cumulonimbus cloud over Africa
Cumulonimbus cloud over Africa
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.
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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
Along Greenland's western coast, a small field of glaciers surrounds Baffin Bay. This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on September 3, 2000. It is a false-color composite image made using near-infrared, red and blue wavelengths. 
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Baffin Bay, Greenland
Baffin Bay, Greenland
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.
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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
The Ganges River forms an extensive delta where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. The delta, largely covered with a swamp forest, is home to most of Bangladesh, one of the world’s most densely populated countries and a nation that is particularly vulnerable to climate change. As the climate changes, low-lying Bangladesh will increasingly face issues such as food insecurity, sea level rise and more frequent and intense extreme weather events. About 120 million people live on the Ganges Delta under the threat of repeated catastrophic floods due to heavy runoff of meltwater from the Himalayas and due to the intense rainfall during the monsoon season.  This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on February 28, 2000. It is a false-color composite image made using green, infrared, and blue wavelengths.
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Ganges River Delta
Ganges River Delta
As part of the Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE), NASA scientists are flying over Alaska and Canada, measuring the elevation of rivers and lakes to study how thawing permafrost affects hydrology in the landscape.
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As part of the Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE), NASA scientists are flying over Alaska and Canada, measuring the elevation of rivers and lakes to study how thawing permafrost affects hydrology in the landscape.
Kuskokwim River

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