Skip Navigation
menu close modal

MULTIMEDIA

Walled off

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.

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.

Credit

Image and caption courtesy of NASA's Visible Earth catalog. Credit: USGS/NASA/Landsat 7.

Enlarge

Related

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.
More
BLUE MARBLE: This spectacul...
Blue marble
This photo from NASA’s Curiosity rover shows the Earth as seen from the surface of Mars, shining brighter than any star in the Martian night sky. Earth is the bright point of light a little left of the image’s center and our moon can be seen just below Earth. Curiosity, which landed on the red planet on August 6, 2013, is the largest and most advanced rover ever sent to Mars. It studies the geology of its surroundings and has found evidence of a past environment well-suited to support microbial life. Researchers used the left-eye camera of Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) to capture this scene about 80 minutes after sunset on the 529th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (January 31, 2014). The image has been processed to remove cosmic-ray effects. A human observer with normal vision, if standing on Mars, could easily see Earth and the moon as two distinct bright evening ‘stars’. When Curiosity took the photo, Earth was about 99 million miles (160 million kilometers) from Mars. This picture adds to our collection of photos of planet Earth from afar, giving a unique perspective to our place in the cosmos.
More
Earth from Mars
Earth from Mars
This scar on an arid landscape is the dry riverbed of the Ghadamis River in the Tinrhert Hamada Mountains near Ghadamis, Libya. This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on November 6, 2000. This is a false-color composite image made using near-infrared, green, and blue wavelengths. The image has also been sharpened using the sensor’s panchromatic band.
More
Ghadamis River in Libya
Ghadamis River in Libya
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.
More
MEANDERING MISSISSIPPI: Sma...
Meandering Mississippi
A series of rocky outcroppings are a prominent feature of this Sahara Desert landscape near the Terkezi Oasis in the country of Chad. This image was taken by the Landsat 7 satellite on October 22, 2000. It is a false-color composite image made using near infrared, green, and red wavelengths. The image has also been sharpened using the sensor's panchromatic band.
More
Terkezi Oasis
Terkezi Oasis
This interesting image shows the world’s largest glacier, Lambert Glacier in Antarctica, and icefall that flows into it. Ice flows like water, albeit much more slowly. Cracks can be seen in this icefall as it bends and twists on its slow descent 1300 feet (400 meters) to the glacier below. The image was taken by the Landsat-7 satellite on December 2, 2000 and is a false-color composite made from infrared, red and green wavelengths. The image has also been sharpened using the sensor’s panchromatic band.
More
Icefall
Icefall
'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.
More
SHIP TRACKS: 'Ship tracks' ...
Ship tracks
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.
More
Whirlpool
Whirlpool
With autumn's arrival, chlorophyll begins to cede its dominance in the photosynthetic process, revealing yellow and orange tones on land, while in the ocean and lakes, phytoplankton pigments highlight different water masses and current systems.
More
Changing colors across land...
Photosynthetic pigments by land and sea
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.
More
PATAGONIA BLOOMS: Off the c...
Patagonia blooms
In this image, we see blue silt off the southern coast of Louisiana as the Mississippi River flows off into the Gulf of Mexico. The brightness and shade of blue depends on the density of the silt and the depth of the silt-carrying currents in the water. The small bright dots in the scene are fishing boats and oil platforms.
More
In this image, we see blue ...
Louisiana silt
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.
More
FLOATING FREE: A space suit...
Floating free
Nicknamed “Dragon Lake,” this body of water is formed by the Bratskove Reservoir, built along the Angara River in southern Siberia, near the city of Bratsk. This image was acquired in winter, when the lake is frozen. This image was acquired by the Landsat satellite on December 19, 1999. This is a natural color composite image made using blue, green and red wavelengths.
More
Dragon Lake, Siberia
Dragon Lake, Siberia
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.
More
CARIBBEAN LUXURY: The Caico...
Caribbean luxury
This image, taken on 4 July 2002, shows spiraling eddies known as von Karman vortices over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. Such eddies form as air flows over and around objects in its path. In this case, these eddies were created when prevailing winds sweeping east across the northern Pacific Ocean encountered Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.
More
Extraordinary Eddies
Extraordinary eddies
This image, captured by the Landsat-8 satellite, shows the view over Western Australia on May 12, 2013. The image shows rich sediment and nutrient patterns in a tropical estuary area and complex patterns and conditions in vegetated areas.  The image is enhanced and involved masking, separately enhancing and then reassembling water and land portions of the image. The water patterns are the result of an RGB display of Landsat-8’s red, blue, and ultra-blue bands. Land is shown using short-wavelength-infrared, near-infrared and green. 
More
Color Explosion
Color explosion
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.
More
Night lights, big cities
Night lights, big cities
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.
More
TIBETAN DEPTHS: Dagze Co (L...
Tibetan depths
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.
More
The United States' first sp...
Space odyssey
The first television picture of Earth from space. Image taken by TIROS 1 on April 1, 1960.
More
TV DEBUT: The first televis...
TV debut
From NASA's Operation IceBridge campaign in Alaska: A high altitude view of Icy Bay, in the Wrangell-Saint Elias Wilderness. Just a century ago, this body of water was covered in ice.
More
Icy Bay, Alaska
Icy Bay, Alaska
This stunning image, taken on July 27, 2000, shows the Lena River in Russia, one of the largest rivers in the world, which is some 2,800 miles (4,400 kilometers) long. The Lena Delta Reserve is the most extensive protected wilderness area in Russia. It is animportant refuge and breeding ground for many species of Siberian wildlife. Original high-resolution image here.
More
This stunning image, taken ...
Lena Delta, Russia
Phytoplankton bloom off western Iceland; 24 June, 2010. Taken by NASA's Aqua satellite.
More
Phytoplankton bloom off wes...
Phytoplankton bloom
These night-shining clouds were spotted over Billund, Denmark on July 15, 2010. These rare clouds are technically called "noctilucent" or "polar mesospheric" clouds, and form at high altitudes, 80 to 85 kilometers (50 to 53 miles) high, where the mesosphere is located. The clouds' high position in the atmosphere allows them to reflect sunlight long after the sun has dropped below the horizon. They only form when the temperature drops below –130 degrees Celsius (-200 degrees Fahrenheit), whereupon the scant amount of water high in the atmosphere freezes into ice clouds. This happens most often in countries at high northern and southern latitudes (above 50 degrees) in the summer, when the mesosphere is coldest. Studies suggest that night-shining clouds are becoming brighter and more common, which is linked to the mesosphere getting colder and more humid. These changes may be happening because of increased levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. In the mesosphere, carbon dioxide radiates heat into space, causing cooling. More methane, on the other hand, puts more water vapor into the atmosphere, because sunlight breaks methane up into water molecules at high altitudes. Research is ongoing.
More
Nocturnal Wonders
Nocturnal wonders
A changing landscape in the heart of Madagascar, showing drainage into the sea in the Betsiboka Estuary due to decimation of rainforests and coastal mangroves. 
More
The heart of Madagascar
The heart of Madagascar

Explore

Interactives, galleries and apps

Images of Change

Images of Change

Explore a stunning gallery of before-and-after images of Earth from land and space that reveal our home planet in a state of flux.
More
Climate Time Machine

Climate Time Machine

Travel through Earth's recent climate history and see how increasing carbon dioxide, global temperature and sea ice have changed over time.
More
Eyes on the Earth

Eyes on the Earth

Track Earth's vital signs from space and fly along with NASA's Earth-observing satellites in an interactive 3D visualization.
More
Global Ice Viewer

Global Ice Viewer

Earth's ice cover is shrinking. See how climate change has affected glaciers, sea ice, and continental ice sheets.
More