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NASA Earth Observatory

NASA website publishing satellite imagery and articles on weather, climate, and geological phenomena, drawing on Landsat and other Earth-observing data.

Known aliases

  • Earth Observatory
  • NASA

Current stories

scienceOne report1 publisher

Antarctic sea ice peaked in September at its third-lowest winter extent in the satellite record

NASA and NSIDC put Antarctic sea ice's 2026 winter peak at 17.59 million square kilometers, the third lowest on record. Whether the ice is in lasting decline after the 2012-2014 record highs is still open, NASA Earth Observatory says.

Publishers:sciencedaily.com

Reality

Evidence78
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+25
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence65
scienceOne report1 publisher

Arctic ice is thinner and younger after a decade of steadier September minimums

Arctic sea ice hit its 2026 minimum on September 12 at about 4.6 million square kilometers, tied for 10th lowest on record. NASA Earth Observatory says the remaining ice is thinner and younger, and scientists still warn of a nearly ice-free summer before 2050.

Publishers:sciencedaily.com

Reality

Evidence82
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap−5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence70
scienceOne report1 publisher

ISS astronaut photographs 100 square kilometers of Moon-type rock in southern Madagascar

ISS astronaut photographed Saririaky massif in Madagascar, 100 square km of anorthosite at least 600 million years old. Anorthosite also makes up much of the Moon's bright highlands, and NASA Earth Observatory says scientists link the deformed rock around it to the collisions that built Gondwana.

Publishers:sciencedaily.com

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

Landsat images show farmland and aquaculture along Thailand's Bang Pakong River under water

NASA's Landsat images show farmland and aquaculture along Prachin Buri's Bang Pakong River flooded on 2 October 2026, set against the same season in 2025. The pair is strong evidence of how far the water spread that day and weaker evidence of what caused it.

Publishers:nasa.gov

Reality

Evidence65
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap−5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence60
scienceOne report1 publisher

Landsat 9 photographs three boreal rivers pouring tea-brown water into James Bay

Landsat 9 imaged the Moose, Nottaway and Harricanaw rivers carrying tea-colored water into James Bay's southern bays on September 27, 2026. The stain is dissolved organic matter from boreal bog and forest. NASA's account gives no estimate of the carbon it carries.

Publishers:nasa.gov

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap0
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence60
scienceOne report1 publisher

Twenty named storms by Sept. 28 put the northeastern Pacific well above its 30-year average

NASA counts 20 named storms and nine hurricanes in the northeastern and central Pacific by Sept. 28, against 1991-2020 averages of 13.5 and 7.4. Colorado State data put storm energy at more than double the norm, so the season is running stronger as well as busier.

Publishers:nasa.gov

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence60
scienceOne report1 publisher

Sand Creek fire cloud acted as its own mountain, lifting moist air into a pileus cap

NASA's INSPYRE flight caught a pileus cap on a wildfire cloud over Montana's Sand Creek fire on August 11, visible in just one of its half-hourly scenes. NASA says researchers rarely see such a cap over a fire cloud in this much detail.

Publishers:nasa.gov

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives40
Confidence60
scienceOne report1 publisher

Faint bumps on Greenland's ice surface trace 1,943 valleys in the rock beneath

NASA-led researchers mapped 1,943 valleys under Greenland's ice from faint bumps in satellite maps of its surface, about a third of them new. The map is meant to improve future versions of BedMachine Greenland, a high-resolution dataset of the terrain beneath the ice.

Publishers:nasa.gov

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives35
Confidence55
scienceConfirmed3 publishers

Lala never made landfall, and the category was the least useful number in the file

A Category 1 peak, 30 to 35 inches of projected rain, and warnings across all eight major Hawaiian islands. The wind rating described almost none of the actual exposure.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 22%
Operator
Operator 67%
Investor
Investor 11%

Reality

Evidence70
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap−30
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence65
scienceOne report1 publisher

Petermann's 76-square-kilometer ice island survived its first collision intact

The August berg was the largest Arctic calving since 2020, but it broke along a fracture the team watching Petermann had not expected, leaving two rifts that together outline more than twice the area that left.

Publishers:nasa.gov phys.org

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap0
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence66
scienceOne report1 publisher

NASA pairs two Landsat scenes with a rainfall summary to show the Murchison in bloom

Above-average June rain and a very wet August in Western Australia's Murchison brought carpets of wildflowers that Landsat 8 caught in late August, in a before-and-after pair where the ground is greener and the flowers themselves go uncounted.

Publishers:nasa.gov

Reality

Evidence68
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+18
Incentives45
Confidence62
scienceOne report1 publisher

Reclamation sent Flaming Gorge water downstream to hold up Lake Powell's hydropower

Lake Powell's surface read 3,517.24 feet on September 10, the lowest on record, after the Upper Colorado Basin's 2025-2026 snowpack came in thin and record warmth took more of it before the melt reached the river.

Publishers:sciencedaily.com

Reality

Evidence72
Adoption65
Hype gap−10
Incentives40
Confidence70
scienceOne report1 publisher

Shatter cones confirm a 25-kilometre Quebec crater that earlier surveys called volcanic

Joel Lapointe noticed a circle near Lake Marsal while planning a 2024 camping trip in Quebec. A floatplane and a 50-metre wade later, Gordon Osinski's team found the shatter cones that decided its origin.

Publishers:sciencedaily.com

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+12
Incentives45
Confidence55
scienceOne report1 publisher

A mid-September heat dome put 41 million Americans inside extreme heat alert areas

NASA Earth Observatory's map of September 15 pairs satellite data with the GEOS model to show air approaching 40 degrees Celsius across the south-central states. The 41 million figure beside it counts residents of National Weather Service alert areas.

Publishers:nasa.gov

Reality

Evidence74
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap−5
Incentives40
Confidence68
scienceOne report1 publisher

Indonesia's peat fires reached a tenth of 2015's emissions total in their first month

NASA Earth Observatory puts the 2026 Indonesian fire season at roughly a tenth of 2015's 1.75 billion tons of greenhouse gas equivalents after about a month, with the underground smoldering fires the hardest for satellites to count.

Publishers:sciencedaily.com

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption55
Hype gap+8
Incentives45
Confidence66
scienceOne report1 publisher

Extreme drought spread across 44% of Puerto Rico during a rainy season that stayed dry

Puerto Rico held no drought at all three months before August 25, when the U.S. Drought Monitor put 44 percent of the territory in extreme drought and rationing was already running in several municipalities.

Publishers:sciencedaily.com

Reality

Evidence64
Adoption68
Hype gap+8
Incentives45
Confidence58
scienceOne report1 publisher

Three Pacific cyclones spinning at once match what the spring El Niño outlook called

By September 3 the Northeast Pacific had 15 named storms and six hurricanes against the Atlantic's five and none, the split forecasters called back in spring. A basin tally, though, says nothing about where the rain lands.

Publishers:nasa.gov

Reality

Evidence68
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+8
Incentives38
Confidence62
scienceOne report1 publisher

Indonesia's peat fires logged a tenth of 2015's emissions in their first month

Peat gives off roughly three times the fine particulate matter of other tropical forest fires, so most of this season's health cost is decided by how much soil is already dry and when the rains return.

Publishers:nasa.gov

Reality

Evidence68
Adoption58
Hype gap+6
Incentives42
Confidence63