Perpetual Ocean

Driven by wind and other forces, currents on the ocean surface cover our planet. Some span hundreds to thousands of miles across vast ocean basins in well-defined flows. Others are confined to particular regions and form slow-moving, circular pools. Seen from space, the circulating waters offer a study in both chaos and order. The visualization below, based on ocean temperature, salinity, sea surface height and sea ice data collected during field observations and by NASA satellites between July 2005 and December 2007, highlights many of the world's most important ocean surface currents. Watch powerful, fast-moving currents like the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean and the Kuroshio in the Pacific Ocean carry warm waters northeastward at speeds greater than 4 mph. View coastal currents such as the Agulhas in the Southern Hemisphere transporting equatorial waters from the Indian Ocean farther southwards. Explore the image collection to compare the direction and unique flow pattern of each of these major currents.

Video credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Baiyun Ebo, China

A mine in Baiyun Ebo, Inner Mongolia, China is the site of almost half the world's rare earth production. China is responsible for over 95% of global production of rare earth elements. These elements are critical ingredients in catalytic converters, cell phones, televisions, lasers, magnets, batteries, and other high-tech gizmos. China's export restrictions have led the US, Japan and the European Union to complain to the World Trade Organization, claiming China was violating trade agreements. The US at one time was a leading producer of rare earths, but most of the mines have been closed. Recently, several US companies are in the process of attempting to re-open these mines and resume mining of rare earths. The image covers an area of 15 x 19 km, was acquired on June 30, 2006, and is located near 41.8 degrees north latitude, 110 degrees east longitude.

Photo credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

Flooding in Fiji

Fiji was hard hit by heavy rains in early 2012, causing flooding and landslides. Hardest hit was the western part of the main island of Viti Levu, Fiji, and the principal city of Nadi. Thousands of people were displaced and the Disaster Management Office declared a state of emergency. In this simulated natural color image acquired by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft on April 7, 2012, the muddy overflowing Nadi River and its tributaries are seen winding through the city of Nadi. The image covers an area of 10.7 by 12.5 miles (17.3 by 20.1 kilometers), and is located at 17.6 degrees south latitude, 177.7 degrees east longitude.

Photo credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

The British Isles and the North Atlantic

Flying at an altitude of about 240 miles over the eastern North Atlantic, the Expedition 30 crew aboard the International Space Station photographed this nighttime scene. This view looks northeastward. Center point coordinates are 46.8 degrees north latitude and 14.3 degrees west longitude. The night lights of the cities of Ireland, in the foreground, and the United Kingdom, in the back and to the right, are contrasted by the bright sunrise in the background. The greens and purples of the Aurora Borealis are seen along the rest of the horizon.

This image was taken on March 28, 2012.

Photo credit: NASA

Update: A similar image can be found here.

Dubai

City lights of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, are featured in this image taken by the Expedition 30 crew aboard the International Space Station. The City of Dubai--the largest metropolitan area within the emirate of Dubai--is a favorite subject of astronaut photography largely due to the unique artificial archipelagos situated directly offshore in the Persian Gulf, which were built such that their full design is only visible from the vantage point of an airplane -- or an orbiting spacecraft. The city presents an eye-catching appearance at night that vividly displays the urban development pattern. In this detailed image, taken with a long focal length lens and digital camera optimized for fast response and high light sensitivity, several interesting patterns can be observed. The highways and major streets are sharply defined by yellow-orange lighting, while the commercial and residential areas are resolved into a speckle pattern of individual white, blue and yellow-orange lights. Several large and brilliantly lit areas are large hotel and mall complexes, including the Burj Khalifa Tower, the world's tallest building at 2,717 feet, or 828 meters. The brilliant lighting of the city contrasts sharply with both the dark Persian Gulf to the northwest, and largely undeveloped and unlit areas to the southeast. Likewise, the clusters of lighting in the Palm Jumeira complex at bottom right correspond to the relatively small part of the archipelago that has been developed. Isolated areas of blurred city lights are due to patchy clouds.

Photo credit: NASA

Melbourne at Night

Melbourne, Australia, at night taken by ESA astronaut André Kuipers from the International Space Station with the NightPod camera aid.

Cameras mounted on NightPod track the movement of Earth as it flies under the Space Station. Night-time photographs are less blurred and captured in higher detail.

Photo credit: ESA/NASA

Larsen B: 2002-2012

This animation shows radar images from the Envisat satellite from 2002 to 2012 of the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica. Over the last decade, the ice shelf has disintegrated by 1790 sq km.

Photo credit: ESA

Bonaire, Curaçao and Aruba

Bonaire, Curaçao and Aruba seen from the International Space Station. This picture was taken by ESA astronaut André Kuipers. A picture of this area was requested via social media. André managed to take the picture and upload it to the Internet two weeks later while onboard the Space Station.

Photo credit: ESA/NASA

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo is the capital of the Dominican Republic. Founded in 1496 by Christopher Columbus, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Americas, with the America's first cathedral, hospital, customs house and university. The town was laid out in a grid pattern that became the model for almost all town planners in the New World. The image was acquired May 18, 2011, covers an area of 24 x 30 km, and is located at 18.5 degrees north latitude, 70 degrees west longitude.

Photo credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

Salt Lake in the Australian Outback

The Australian Outback is full of colorful geological structures, such as this salt lake.

This photo was taken by ESA astronaut André Kuipers and released during Earth Hour on Saturday 31 March 2012.

Earth Hour is a world effort to raise awareness about the need to take action on climate change. World Wide Fund for Nature ambassador André Kuipers and ESA supported the initiative.

Photo credit: ESA/NASA

Night Lights in Europe

This animation is made up of two images of Europe at night showing lights from sources in cities and along roads in 1992 and 2010. Bright areas highly correlate with high population density – such as the densely populated cities like London, Paris and Rome. Coastal areas are also more populated than inland regions, making the outline of Europe clearly visible in these night images.

The images were acquired by the United States’ DMSP satellites. The DMSP satellites are run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, monitoring the meteorological, oceanographic and solar–terrestrial physics environments for the US Department of Defense. Data from DMSP’s Operational Linescan System can be used to see city lights.

Photo credit: NGDC/DMSP/ESA

Indonesian Islands

This image from the Envisat satellite is dominated by the Indonesian islands of Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa. Bali's central mountains include peaks that reach over 3000 m, including an active volcano visible on the right side of the island. Strong reflections of the radar signal used to produce this image appear like specks of light. They are mainly detectable in the southern part of the island, and are particularly concentrated around the provincial capital city of Denpasar. This is the typical appearance of built-up areas in radar images, owing to the multiple reflection of the radar beam by buildings and especially metal constructions.

This image is a compilation of three passes by Envisat’s radar on 20 June, 19 August and 17 December 2011. Each is assigned a color (red, green and blue) and combined to produce this representation. The colors reveal changes in the surface between Envisat’s passes.

Photo credit: ESA

Earth's Gravilty Field Map, Before and After GRACE

Before the launch of NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) in 2002, scientists' knowledge of Earth's gravity field was based upon decades of data from geodetic satellites (left image). GRACE has allowed monthly gravity measurements that are more than 100 times more accurate than these previous models, permitting scientists to characterize how Earth's gravity field varies over time and space, as illustrated by the map on the right, produced after just 13 months of GRACE data.

Image credit: NASA/University of Texas Center for Space Research

Note: For more information, see At 10, GRACE Continues Defying, and Defining, Gravity.

Nunavut Territory, Canada

Nunavut, in northern Canada, is the largest and newest federal territory of the country. The name means "our land" in Inuktitut, given to the territory in 1999. With a population of about 33,000 and an area about the size of Western Europe, Nunavut is the largest and least populous of the provinces in Canada. The land is mostly flat as a result of the actions of the large ice sheet that completely covered the land tens of thousands of years ago. The evidence of this past glaciation is apparent in the thousands of lakes gouged out of the land surface. In the summer the lakes each harbor different biota, and have varying amounts of sediments; hence the great variety of colors seen. The image was acquired July 18, 2001, covers an area of 58 x 59 km, and is located at 67 degrees north latitude, 97.6 degrees west longitude.

Photo credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

The Sikhote–Alin Mountains

The Sikhote–Alin mountain range in Russia’s Far East is pictured in this image, acquired on 27 January 2012 by the MERIS instrument on ESA’s Envisat satellite. In the lower-left portion of the image is the snow-covered Khanka Lake, which spans Russia’s border with northeast China. East of the mainland is the Sea of Japan, which appears to have a feathery cloud-cover. This is due to the cold air coming from the mountains and blowing out to sea. In the upper-right portion of the image is Russia’s largest island, Sakhalin.

Photo credit: ESA

Paris to Portugal

European lights seen by André Kuipers from space. Portugal is to the right of the image, and Paris is the glowing light on the left of the image.

Photo credit: ESA/NASA

Flooding in Algeria

Extremely heavy rains fell at the end of February 2012 in the northern Algerian province of El Tarf, near the Tunisian border. The rainfall total was the greatest recorded in the last 30 years. The Seybouse River overflowed its banks, submerging adjacent villages. Overflow from the Bougous, Mexa and Cheffia dams added to the misery. In this image from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft, acquired March 1, 2012, vegetation is shown in red and water is depicted as black to turquoise, depending on how much sediment it contains. The image is located at 36.7 degrees north latitude and 8.3 degrees east longitude. It covers an area of 22 by 37.2 miles (34 by 60 kilometers).

With its 14 spectral bands from the visible to the thermal infrared wavelength region and its high spatial resolution of 15 to 90 meters (about 50 to 300 feet), ASTER images Earth to map and monitor the changing surface of our planet. ASTER is one of five Earth-observing instruments launched December 18, 1999, on Terra. The instrument was built by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

Photo credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

Algerian Sands

This image shows the sandy and rocky terrain of the Sahara desert in western Algeria. With the Mediterranean Sea almost 500 km away, the closest town to the area pictured here is Taghit in the Algerian province of Béchar.

The commercial Ikonos-2 satellite acquired this image on 23 April 2008 at a spatial resolution of 4 m.

Photo credit: EUSI

Italy at Night

This nighttime panorama of much of Europe was photographed by one of the Expedition 30 crew members aboard the International Space Station flying approximately 240 miles above the Tyrrhenian Sea on January 25, 2012. Most of the country of Italy is visible running horizontally across the center of the frame, with the night lights of Rome and Naples being visible to the left and right of center, respectively. Sardinia and Corsica are in the lower left quadrant of the photo. The Adriatic Sea is on the other side of Italy, and beyond it to the east and north can be seen parts of several other European nations.

Photo credit:

West Coast of Africa

The first MERIS observation captured the huge phytoplankton patch produced by the 'upwelling' mechanism along the west coast of Africa near Mauritania. The unprecedented resolution allows fine-scale structures to be detected. In such upwelling areas, northeast trade winds bring deep and nutrient-rich water to the surface, feeding phytoplankton. Changes in climate affect the intensity of the upwelling with important consequences for marine ecosystems, fisheries and local economies.

One important task for MERIS is to provide overviews of the dynamics of upwelling areas and their primary production. This, in turn, could improve management of fish stocks within sustainable limits. Another important task for MERIS is to provide information on carbon fixation through photosynthesis within the global ocean for a better understanding of the carbon cycle.

Instrument: MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS)
Date of Acquisition: 22 March 2002
Orbit number: 00306
Instrument features: Full resolution image (300-meter resolution)
MERIS was designed to measure the concentration of phytoplankton. The colors seen by MERIS indicate the concentration of chlorophyll, the pigment that phytoplankton use for photosynthesis. MERIS can detect chlorophyll concentrations as low as 0.01 microgram, or 1/100 000 000 of a gram, per liter. MERIS data will be used to monitor the worldwide distribution of phytoplankton and to compute primary production.

Photo credit: ESA