One of the best surprises of my life was turning on my brand-new iPhone—before it had even been activated—glancing down at the screen, and seeing an image I had made. Apple chose the NASA Blue Marble ...

Just as the incoming and outgoing energy at the Earth’s surface must balance, the flow of energy into the atmosphere must be balanced by an equal flow of energy out of the atmosphere and back to space ...

These key science points were published on September 27, 2013, as “headline statements” by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as part of the organization’s fifth assessment report.

Vishnu, an Earth Observatory reader, posed a great question after viewing “The Six-Million Mile View of Earth and Moon“: “I’ve never seen a photo like that. Was the background beyond Earth ...

Land surface temperature is how hot the “surface” of the Earth would feel to the touch in a particular location. From a satellite’s point of view, the “surface” is whatever it sees when it looks ...

Vishnu, an Earth Observatory reader, posed a great question after viewing “The Six-Million Mile View of Earth and Moon“: “I’ve never seen a photo like that. Was the background beyond Earth ...

The thermosalinograph (TSG) on Knorr is a shipboard instrument for measuring temperature and salinity of the near surface water . It is situated in a lab and receives a flow of water taken in near the ...

For nearly 20 years, Jim Acker, a contract support scientist at the NASA Goddard Earth Science Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), has helped oceanographers compile and study data ...

Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The September 2025 puzzler is shown above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us where it is, what we are looking ...

Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The September 2025 puzzler is shown above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us where it is, what we are looking ...

August 2016 was the warmest August in 136 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).

There are not many places in the open ocean that get their own special name as a “sea.” Most seas are what we call marginal seas – offshoots of the major ocean basins. The Sargasso Sea, as a vast ...