This animation shows deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest in the western Brazilian state of Rondônia from 1986 to 2010. While the central area remains green and untouched, squares of light green and brown pop up over time as the forest is cut away.
The animation was created using two cloud-free images: the first from NASA’s Landsat mission in 1986, and the second from the Spanish Deimos mission in 2010. The changes over time were simulated by referring to other satellite data acquired during the 24 years between the two images.
The Petermann Glacier grinds and slides toward the sea along the northwestern coast of Greenland, terminating in a giant floating ice tongue. Like other glaciers that end in the ocean, Petermann periodically calves icebergs. A massive iceberg, or ice island, broke off of the Petermann Glacier in 2010. Now, nearly two years later, another chunk of ice has broken free.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, on NASA’s Aqua satellite observed the new iceberg calving and drifting downstream on July 16–17, 2012. Because Aqua is a polar-orbiting satellite, it makes multiple passes over the polar regions each day.
This image from ALOS shows southern France and the divide of the Rhone River: the 'Grand Rhône' flows down the center of the image while the 'Petit Rhône' is visible to the west. This divide at the French city of Arles forms the Camargue delta region. In the upper right corner of the image, we can see the Alpilles mountains. The green area south of the mountains is a large nature reserve.
This image is a compilation of three radar passes on 14 May 2008, 20 May 2010 and 5 July 2010. Each is assigned a color (red, green or blue) and combined to produce this representation. The colors reveal changes in the surface between the satellite’s passes.
Tapping into fossil ground water, Saudi Arabia has been steadily developing agricultural fields using center pivot irrigation. A remarkable example is in the Wadi As-Sirhan Basin in northwest Saudi Arabia. In the 1984 Landsat image (top), no fields are yet present. By 2000, ASTER showed extensive farming activity (middle); vegetation is bright red. And by 2011, the ASTER image shows several areas where wall-to-wall fields were developed, each about 1 km in diameter (bottom). The images cover an area of 19.5 x 33 km, and are located at 30.5 degrees north latitude, 38 degrees east longitude.
Dawson, Canada was a boom town in 1898, with a population of 40,000. Discovery of gold in the Klondike fueled the massive influx of miners, merchants, and other support professions to this town on the Yukon River. The current population is just over 1,000, with over 60,000 tourists invading the town each summer. Shortly after gold discovery, large gold dredges began an industrial mining operation, leaving large tailings piles in their wake. These can be clearly seen along the creek east of Dawson. The image was acquired September 19, 2010, and is located at 64.1 degrees north latitude, 136.4 degrees west longitude.
The Waldo Canyon Fire, west of Colorado Springs, Colo., is being called the worst fire in Colorado history. Since its onset on June 23, 2012, the fire has consumed more than 18,000 acres and hundreds of homes. Containment of the fire is expected by July 6. In this image, acquired by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft on July 4, healthy vegetation is red, water is dark blue, streets and buildings are gray, and the burned areas are black. The image covers an area of 9.3 by 12.1 miles (15 by 18 kilometers) and is located at 36.9 degrees north latitude, 104.9 degrees west longitude.
This image acquired on 3 May 2012 from the Pleiades satellite shows the island of Mont Saint Michel and its surrounding bay in northwest France. Mont Saint Michel was a tidal island, meaning that it was surrounded by water at high tide and only when the waters receded was it reachable by foot. In the late 1800s, the causeway was raised to make it accessible from the mainland at all times. In this image, we can clearly see where the water meets the mud flats, with multiple channels weaving through the mud.
