There is no award for completing the walk from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon, and Washington. But read about the journeys of so-called “thru-hikers” of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), and ...

Trees cool and moisten our air and fill it with oxygen. They calm the winds and shade the land from sunlight. They shelter countless species, anchor the soil, and slow the movement of water. They ...

For a short time after a snowfall, glaciers are like blank white canvases. But it’s not long before the snowy surfaces are painted over with coats of dust, soot, ash, pollen, salt, sand, rocks, and ...

In January 2016 in Kenya, the conditions were just right for an outbreak of Rift Valley fever. A strong El Niño on the other side of the world had brought higher temperatures and a wetter-than-normal ...

Since 1999, Earth Observatory has published 16,000+ images. To celebrate our 20th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, we want you to pick our all-time best image. Each week from March ...

Many Siberians call the first of August “the beginning of the end of summer.” This expression acknowledges how quickly warm weather will pass, and reminds people to prepare for the extreme cold to ...

Update: This Landsat 9 image shows an island group and its surrounding waters off mainland Mozambique. Congratulations to Mark for being the first reader to identify the location and to Yaakov ...

Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, studies why and how Earth’s climate varies over time. He offered some context on the annual ...

At least as far back as King David’s psalms and Isaiah’s prophecies, snow has been characterized as a symbol of purity. “Lawn [linen] as white as driven snow” was how Shakespeare once described it.

The Earth Observatory shares images and stories about the environment, Earth systems, and climate that emerge from NASA research, satellite missions, and models.

Hurricane season in the North Atlantic Ocean officially began on June 1, though the season typically peaks in September. Through August 1, 2011, four tropical storms had developed in the Atlantic ...

It might be hard to believe but yes, we are still in town! We have been delayed for a full week now, every day getting ready for a possible flight the next day, and every morning, we get the same ...