Earth
Your home. Our mission.
NASA is an exploration agency, and one of our missions is to know our home. We develop novel tools and techniques for understanding how our planet works -- for the benefit of humanity and for insights we need to explore other moons and planets. NASA's Earth Science Division operates more than 20 satellites in orbit, sponsors hundreds of research programs and studies, and funds opportunities to put data to use for societal needs. We develop new ways to observe the oceans, land cover, ice, atmosphere, and life, and we measure how changes in one drive changes in others over the short and long term. While listening to and collaborating with industry leaders, international partners, academic institutions, and other users of our data, we drive innovations and deliver science to help inform decisions that benefit the nation and the world.
Recent News and Articles
Featured Story
Going With the Flow: Visualizing Ocean Currents with ECCO
NASA scientists and collaborators built the ECCO model to be the most realistic, detailed, and continuous depiction of the ocean ever developed. Read the story, watch the video, and look at the many new visualizations.
Read MoreScience in Action for Society
Learn how NASA’s studies of Earth bring benefits to the nation and world.
FARMing with Data: OpenET Launches new Tool for Farmers and Ranchers
NASA Tests Drones to Provide Micrometeorology, Aid in Fire Response
NASA Radar Imagery Reveals Details About Los Angeles-Area Landslides
Nighttime Lights Reveal Industrial Activity in the Arctic
Satellite observations at night indicate that oil, gas, and mining have expanded across Earth’s northern latitudes.
NASA Flights Map Critical Minerals from Skies Above Western US
NASA’s Brad Doorn Brings Farm Belt Wisdom to Space-Age Agriculture
NASA Helps Build New Federal Sea Level Rise Website
Curious Universe Podcast's Earth Series
Welcome to Earth
There’s one planet NASA studies more than any other: Earth. With our unique vantage point from space, NASA collects information about our home in ways nobody else can. In this podcast miniseries, celebrate our home planet by learning how NASA studies Earth—including unique views of ocean color and sea level, land data that helps farmers improve crop production, and researching our atmosphere from the air we breathe to layers high above us that protect every living thing on the planet.
Listen Now
How NASA Sees Our Blue Marble
NASA is an exploration agency, and one of our missions is to know our home. In the 1960s, NASA astronauts orbiting the Moon captured a revelatory view of Earth. Today, NASA explores our home planet with a fleet of dozens of spacecraft. In this episode–the first in a miniseries all about Earth–we take in the view from space with Karen St. Germain, the director of NASA’s Earth Science Division.
Listen NowThe Ocean, Now in Full Color
Life all over the planet—even far from the coasts—depends on the oceans. A pair of NASA satellites, PACE and SWOT, is giving us a fresh look at Earth’s water. PACE tracks color changes driven by tiny plankton, which give us a big-picture view of ocean life. By measuring sea level height from space, SWOT shows ocean currents and other features in new detail. NASA scientists Cecile Rousseaux, Kelsey Bisson, and Josh Willis dive into new research with a lot of color and a little bit of rock and roll.
Listen NowSensing the Seas
For more than forty years, NASA has found unique ways to study the surface layers of the ocean from the tropics to the poles. With three new missions since 2020 – PACE, SWOT, and Sentinel 6-Michael Freilich – we are now ushering in a new era of ocean studies.
Next-Generation Water Satellite Maps Seafloor From Space
NASA’s PACE, US-European SWOT Satellites Offer Combined Look at Ocean
NASA Analysis Shows Irreversible Sea Level Rise for Pacific Islands
Surfing NASA’s Internet of Animals: Satellites Study Ocean Wildlife
NASA Wants to Identify Phytoplankton Species from Space. Here’s Why.
Picturing Earth: Astronaut Photography In Focus
For 20 years, astronauts have been shooting photos of Earth from the space station. Like everything the astronauts do, they are trained for this job. And like everything they do, there is purpose and intention behind it.
Images of the Day
A high-elevation camp in the Colorado Rockies served as a training area for specialized high mountain troops who later fought in World War II.
A sprawling natural amphitheater interrupts the green slopes of this mountainous area.
The national park west of mainland Florida includes a smattering of islands, but the vast majority of the park’s acreage lies underwater.
Fires in these coastal forests can rejuvenate ecosystems but also threaten large numbers of people and homes in the densely populated state.
Moonscapes of Idaho
The volcanic features and otherworldly landscape of Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve are apt training grounds for planetary exploration.
A national recreation area and state park protect an archipelago made of glacial debris in eastern Massachusetts.
Mountains Made of Fossils
The peaks in Guadalupe Mountains National Park—some of the highest in Texas—are made of a well-preserved fossil reef formed more than 250 million years ago.
PACE Scientists Take to the Sea and Air (and Really High Air)
One of NASA’s most expansive and complex field campaigns took place over the month of September. The goal: to check the data that the new PACE satellite is collecting from orbit about Earth’s atmosphere and ocean. To do that, NASA’s PACE-PAX (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem mission Postlaunch Airborne eXperiment) deployed several aircraft and ships from multiple locations in California, including Marina, Santa Barbara, and NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards.
Earth Information Center
For more than 50 years, NASA satellites have provided data on Earth's land, water, air, temperature, and climate. NASA's Earth Information Center allows visitors to see how our planet is changing in six key areas: sea level rise and coastal impacts, health and air quality, wildfires, greenhouse gases, sustainable energy, and agriculture.
Explore
