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Vivid sunset

Vivid Sunset

The sun sets over NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on October 13, 2010.

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NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis. Source: Wikimedia Commons. 

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This image, taken on January 21, 2005, shows a collision between two of the largest floating objects in the world, the Drygalski Ice Tongue and iceberg "B15-A" in Antarctica (B15-A is on the right). The 43-mile- (70-kilometer-) long Drygalski Ice Tongue juts out from the icy land of Antarctica into McMurdo Sound like a pier, and is a floating extension of the land-based David Glacier. B15-A, 75 miles (120 kilometers) long, had been drifting slowly towards Drygalski for months before this image was taken. The presence of B15-A complicated supply trips to the nearby McMurdo science base and endangered penguins in the area by blocking their access to open sea. The perspective we get from space allows us to see the scale and scope of changes to these massive bodies of ice that we could not see in any other way.
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Drygalski Ice Tongue, Antar...
Drygalski Ice Tongue, Antarctica
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 c...
Patagonia blooms
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.
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Nocturnal Wonders
Nocturnal wonders
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 mostly from 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).
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This image, showing tidal f...
Long Island, Bahamas
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 sp...
Space odyssey
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.
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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.
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FLOATING FREE: A space suit...
Floating free
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.
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Earth from Mars
Earth from Mars
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.
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ALASKAN SHIMMERThe tongue o...
Alaskan shimmer
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.
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Dragon Lake, Siberia
Dragon Lake, Siberia
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.
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TIBETAN DEPTHS: Dagze Co (L...
Tibetan depths
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...
Van Gogh from space
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...
Susitna Glacier
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 ...
Night lights
This photo, taken on January 22, 2001 by the Landsat-7 satellite, shows Akpatok Island, which lies in Ungava Bay in Canada. Accessible only by air, Akpatok Island rises out of the water as sheer cliffs that soar 500 to 800 feet (150 to 243 meters) above the sea surface. The island is an important sanctuary for cliff-nesting seabirds. Numerous ice floes around the island attract walruses and whales, making Akpatok a traditional hunting ground for native Inuit people.
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Akpatok Island
Akpatok Island
This view of Earth from space is a fusion of science and art, drawing on data from multiple satellite missions and the talents of NASA scientists and graphic artists.
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Twin Blue Marbles
Twin Blue Marbles
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
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.
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Terkezi Oasis
Terkezi Oasis
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.
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BLUE MARBLE: This spectacul...
Blue marble
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 ...
Window to the world
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. 
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The heart of Madagascar
The heart of Madagascar
This simulated natural-color image shows the North and South Malosmadulu Atolls in the Maldives, an island republic in the northern Indian Ocean, southwest of India. The Maldives consists of a chain of almost 1200 small coral islands that are grouped into clusters of atolls. It is home to about a third of a million people. Arguably the lowest-lying country in the world, the average elevation is 1 meter (3.3 feet) above sea level. Waves triggered by the great tsunami of December 2004 spilled over sea walls to flood the capital with sandy water and then swept out just as suddenly. Residents fear this was a foreboding of disasters to come from sea level rise due to global warming. The image was taken on 22 December 2002, and covers an area of 51 x 90 kilometers (32 x 56 miles).
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The Maldives
The Maldives
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.
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CARIBBEAN LUXURY: The Caico...
Caribbean luxury
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 colo...
Coco River, Nicaragua and Honduras
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

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