Images

Australia is the smallest, and flattest, of all the continents. Its surface details are largely the result of erosion. Many rivers drain into the continent's harsh, arid interior, where they terminate in salt lakes that are dry for most of the year.

Surrounded by sand dunes, Lake Disappointment is an ephemeral salt lake in one of the most remote areas of Western Australia. An early explorer supposedly named the lake in 1897 after following a number of creeks that he thought would lead to a large lake; they did, but the lake's extremely salty water was not drinkable.

Appearing as if an artist imitating Jackson Pollock had randomly spurted ink onto the canvas, this image shows swirling ice in the Foxe Basin of northern Canada. Even though the image is from late July, there was still ice floating in the water this far north.

Resembling choppy waters in a rough sea, this image is an infrared exposition of a sand sea in Namibia. Sand dunes surround a crescent-shaped rocky hill. This inselberg is hard rock that resisted the erosion that took place over time around it. The inselberg disrupts the deposition of sand, changing the dune pattern.

One glacier on Russian islands in the Arctic Ocean surprised scientists with its rapid change. After decades of normal, slow movement, a glacier draining Vavilov Ice Cap sprang forward, accelerating rapidly after 2013. This fast movement is extremely rare for cold-based glaciers. In 5 years, the ice tongue doubled in size.

Heavy spring rains and widespread flooding has killed more than 150 people and displaced thousands in Kenya this year.

Seventeen rivers flow into the Bangweulu Wetlands in Zambia, but only one drains out. Green tendrils randomly sweep through the image, a landscape dominated by various grasslands, open water, and dense Papyrus grass and Phragmites reeds. The entire wetland covers an area about the size of Connecticut.

New fissures opened up on Hawaii’s Big Island in early May 2018, spouting lava that destroyed homes in the Leilani Estates neighborhood.

The 2018 fire season is already active in the western United States. One of the larger wildfires so far is the Rattlesnake Fire. 

A group of second-graders from the Garretson School District in Garretson, South Dakota pose for a photo at the Earth Resources Observation and Science Center near Sioux Falls, SD.

The Lake Eyre Basin is one of the driest places in Australia. But this image features a rare green flush to this otherwise parched landscape. Streams and creeks that drain into the basin are usually dry, but storms in March 2018 delivered water to these braided channels. By April, the floodwater had receded and left a green expanse behind.

Decades of consistent data from Landsat help scientists monitor the growth of urban areas in a world where more than half of the population lives in cities.

Near the Queen Fabiola Mountains, also called the Yamato Mountains, is a classic example of blue ice in Antarctica. Blue ice emerges where wind scours glaciers clean of snow and forms when air bubbles are squeezed out of layers of partially compacted snow left over from previous seasons. The ice appears blue because red and yellow wavelengths of light are absorbed.

Images from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) onboard NASA's Terra satellite show how one area in South Korea transformed from mountainous forest to a world-class downhill skiing venue to get ready for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Volcán de Fuego in Guatemala erupted on January 31, 2018, and Landsat 8 acquired an image of the eruption a day later.

Landsat 7 satellite image from February 1, 2018, acquired on Landsat 7's 100,000th orbit.

Water levels in large reservoirs in South Africa’s Western Cape province have been impacted by persistent drought in recent years. This Landsat 2014 image shows the Theewaterskloof reservoir, the largest in the province’s water supply system. In subsequent years, water levels have dropped significantly as seasonal rains have repeatedly failed.

Ivanpah Playa Radiometric Calibration Site

Learn more about this Test Site at https://calval.cr.usgs.gov/apps/ivanpah.

A three-year drought is threatening to cause city officials in Cape Town, South Africa, to shut off the tap water. The growing city of nearly 4 million relies mostly on reservoirs for its water supply. While drought is part of the cause of the current crisis, an increasing population is also straining water resources.

Over the past few years, black smoke has been seen in satellite images billowing from various locations in Iraq. As Iraqi forces drive ISIS away, the terrorist group has been setting oil wells on fire as it retreats.

At least 300 active volcanoes dot the Kamchatka Peninsula, which lies along the geologically active Pacific Ring of Fire. Landsat 8 caught this plume of ash and smoke streaming from one of these volcanoes - Klyuchevskaya - on January 10, 2018.