Since its launch in February 2013, Landsat 8 has collected about 400 scenes of the Earth’s surface per day. Each of these scenes covers an area of about 185 by 185 kilometers (115 by 115 miles)—34,200 ...

Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The October 2024 puzzler is shown above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us where it is, what we are looking at ...

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The Sun provides the energy that drives Earth’s climate, but not all of the energy that reaches the top of the atmosphere finds its way to the surface. That’s because aerosols—and clouds seeded by ...

On Friday morning, at 7:40 AM EDT, our WB-57 took off for a third, and final flight over Hurricane Gonzalo. At the time of our flight, Gonzalo was a Category 3 storm located south of Bermuda. While we ...

After our adventures in Quebec and Greenland, it was now time for our last stop in this intense season of fieldwork. This time we were heading to the Canadian Northwest Territories (NWT).

After our adventures in Quebec and Greenland, it was now time for our last stop in this intense season of fieldwork. This time we were heading to the Canadian Northwest Territories (NWT).

Research Vessel (RV) Blissfully is a 30-foot sailboat that is the science lab and home for two sailing scientists, Captain Gordon Ackland and myself, Dr. Bridget Seegers. The RV Blissfully is a recent ...

The water, or hydrologic, cycle describes the pilgrimage of water as water molecules make their way from the Earth’s surface to the atmosphere and back again, in some cases to below the surface. This ...

Desertification. The word invokes images of sand dunes blowing over abandoned farms as some irresistible, dark force steadily transforms fertile fields into inhospitable wasteland. The United Nations’ ...

Pine trees (genus Pinus) are evergreen, conifers (they produce cones that encase reproduction seeds) and can be found throughout the world, but they are native to northern temperate regions. There are ...

Near infrared (NIR) light includes wavelengths between 700 and 1,100 nanometers. Water absorbs NIR, so these wavelengths are useful for discerning land-water boundaries that are not obvious in visible ...