Central Berlin: Image of the Day
Germany's largest city and capital, Berlin has appeared in historical records since the 14th century, and has been a capital city of the surrounding kingdom, empire, or nation since the beginning of the 18th ce... More
Petroleum Infrastructure, Denver City, Texas: Image of the Day
Agriculture and the petroleum industry compete for land use near Denver City, Texas, southwest of Lubbock near the New Mexico border. The economy of this region is almost completely dependent on its undergroun... More
Ivory-billed Woodpecker Habitat: Image of the Day
Surrounded by farmland, crossed by an interstate highway, and located less than 75 miles from Arkansas' capital and largest city, the 55,000-acre www.fws.gov/cacheriver/ Cache River National Wildlife Refuge h... More
Testing for the Future, NASA history collection
Testing advanced designs for high-speed aircraft in 1948, an engineer makes final calibrations to a model mounted in the 6 x 6 Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel at the NACA Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, Moffett Field... More
Lake Eildon National Park: Image of the Day
Australia is one of the driest continents on Earth: only Antarctic gets less annual precipitation. It also is the flattest continent, so there are few mountain ranges to wring additional moisture from the atmo... More
Bezymianny Volcano: Image of the Day
The Bezymianny Volcano experienced an explosive eruption on May 9, 2006. The volcano emitted an ash column as high as 15 kilometers (9.3 miles). According to news reports, the Aleutian Islands in western Alaska... More
Kiritimati, Kiribati (Christmas Island): Image of the Day
Pronounced ''Ki-ris-mas,'' Kiritimati Island has a large infilled lagoon that gives it the largest land area (125 square miles, 321 square km) of any atoll in the world. Captain Cook named the atoll Christmas ... More
Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania: Image of the Day
Olduvai Gorge is a 50-km-long (30-mile), 90-meter-deep (295-foot) ravine located in the eastern Serengeti Plains of northern Tanzania, within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. According to geologists, the regi... More
Lake Mead in Drought: Image of the Day
Water is the lifeblood of the western United States. Not only does it sustain municipal drinking supplies and agriculture, it is also one of the primary sources of electricity. Dams along the Colorado and other... More
In the 1950s, construction began on the Glen Canyon
In the 1950s, construction began on the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona. The dam created Lake Powell: a long, skinny, meandering reservoir straddling the Arizona-Utah border. Ingenuity... More
'Fossil Water'' in Libya: Image of the Day
In the 1950s, oil exploration in Libya turned up another valuable resource: water. Huge aquifers, underground deposits of sand and rock that also contain water, lurked underneath the scorching sands. Libyans we... More
In the Constellation Cassiopeia NASA Image of The Day
Tycho's Supernova, the red circle visible in the upper left part of the image, is SN 1572 is a remnant of a star explosion is named after the astronomer Tycho Brahe, although he was not the only person to obser... More
Baku, Azerbaijan : Image of the Day
Baku is Azerbaijan's major city, and the oil capital of the Caspian region. This detailed view taken by the Expedition 2 crew on the International Space Station shows details of the city, including the extensiv... More
'Fossil Water'' in Libya: Image of the Day
In the 1950s, oil exploration in Libya turned up another valuable resource: water. Huge aquifers, underground deposits of sand and rock that also contain water, lurked underneath the scorching sands. Libyans we... More
Mt. Kosciuszko: Image of the Day
The 2,228-meter-tall (7,310-foot) Mt. Kosciuszko lies at the southern end of Australia's Snowy Mountains, which define the Kosciuszko National Park. Though it is the tallest mountain on the continent, Koscius... More
Antarctic Megadunes: Image of the Day
In Antarctica, relentless winds have created a unique type of snowdrift pattern known as megadunes. Formed by centuries of nearly continuous winds, megadunes are 1 to 8 meters high (1 meter is 3.3 feet), and 2 ... More
The Netherlands: Image of the Day
Along the southern coast of the Netherlands, sediment-laden rivers have created a massive delta of islands and waterways in the gaps between the coastal dunes. After unusually severe spring tides devasted thi... More
Krakatau Volcano National Park: Image of the Day
Nestled between the large Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra is the Krakatau Volcano National Park. In the fourth century, a single marine volcano stood at this site, but in 416 A.D., the caldera of the v... More
Mt. Cook, New Zealand: Image of the Day
The Seven Summits are the highest peaks on each of the Earth's seven continents. However, there is some debate about whether to only count Australia, Australia and New Zealand, or all of Oceania (which adds t... More
Mt. Ruapehu, New Zealand: Image of the Day
All around the world, people live in places where the threat of natural disaster is high. On the North Island of New Zealand, the Mount Ruapehu volcano is just such a threat. A towering, active stratovolcano (t... More
Korean Demilitarized Zone: Image of the Day
On July 27, 1953, an armistice agreement brought fighting, though not the war itself, to an end in Korea. One legacy of that 50-year-old ceasefire has been the 250-km-long (148-mile) truce line bisecting the K... More
Sarychev Volcano NASA Image of The Day
A fortuitous orbit of the International Space Station allowed the astronauts this striking view of Sarychev volcano (Russia's Kuril Islands, northeast of Japan) in an early stage of eruption on June 12, 2009. S... More
The Mercury Project NASA Image of The Day
This 1958 scale model shows the Mercury capsule shape B design, indicating the position of the astronaut. Image credit: NASA NASA Identifier: 175339main_image_feature_812_ys_full
Isle Royale National Park: Image of the Day
Isle Royale National Park includes a group of islands and the surrounding waters of Lake Superior. The entire park takes in 2,200 square kilometers (850 square miles), including the territory up to 4 kilometers... More
Project Mercury Explained NASA Image of The Day
Less than a year after its birth, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency announced its first astronaut class, the Mercury Seven, on April 9, 1959. Project Mercury proved that humans could live and work in sp... More
Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan: Image of the Day
Two capital cities in Pakistan lie next to one another but display land use patterns that are entirely different. Islamabad, with a population of 901,000 (ca. 1998) boasts a master-planned rectangular street p... More
Typhoon Rusa Scours Korea: Image of the Day
Over the weekend, Typhoon Rusa swept past the southern Japanese island of Kyushu and clobbered South Korea, killing more than 110 people and submerging thousands of homes. The typhoon can be seen just south of... More
Walter Schirra NASA Image of The Day
Pictured is astronaut Walter M. Schirra, one of the original seven astronauts for Mercury Project selected by NASA on April 27, 1959. Schirra's Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, during which he piloted his Sigma 7 space... More
Mt. Elbrus: Image of the Day - Public domain photogrpaph
The Seven Summits are the highest peaks on each of the Earth's seven continents. However, there is disagreement about where the border between Europe and Asia is located in Russia. One commonly cited boundary... More
Typhoon Rusa Scours Korea: Image of the Day
Over the weekend, Typhoon Rusa swept past the southern Japanese island of Kyushu and clobbered South Korea, killing more than 110 people and submerging thousands of homes. The typhoon can be seen just south of... More
San Francisco Skyline: Image of the Day
San Francisco is one of the largest cities in the United States. Roughly three quarters of a million people live within the city proper, with about seven million within the broader metropolitan area. The ci... More
Land Between The Lakes: Image of the Day
The Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area sits nestled between two artificial lakes, Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, created by dams placed across the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, respectively. Th... More
Where on Earth...? MISR Mystery Image Quiz #19 : Image of the Day
Here's another chance to play geographical detective! This natural-color image from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) represents an area of about 375 kilometers x 407 kilometers, and was captur... More
Ancient Bristlecones in Schulman Grove: Image of the Day
The bristlecone pines of California's White Mountains are some of Earth's oldest living things. The ancient trees -- at least one over 4,700 years old -- live in an otherwise barren environment. Cold and dry co... More
The Original Seven NASA Image of The Day
In this 1960 photograph, the seven original Mercury astronauts participate in U.S. Air Force survival training exercises at Stead Air Force Base in Nevada. Pictured from left to right are: L. Gordon Cooper, M. ... More
Where on Earth...? MISR Mystery Image Quiz #19 : Image of the Day
Here's another chance to play geographical detective! This natural-color image from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) represents an area of about 375 kilometers x 407 kilometers, and was captur... More
Subsidence in New Orleans: Image of the Day
Most people know that New Orleans has been sinking, but exactly how much has it sunk? In a paper published in the journal Nature, an international team of scientists determined the subsidence (sinking) in New O... More
Dust Storm near Lake Chad: Image of the Day
Dust from the Bodele depression in Chad, Africa (image right), is blowing across the Lake Chad region in this modis.gsfc.nasa.gov Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image taken by the terr... More
Dust and Smoke near Lake Chad: Image of the Day
A combination of dust of smoke clouds the air over Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad in this modis.gsfc.nasa.gov Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image acquired on January 8, 2004, by the aqua... More
Glacier National Park: Image of the Day
Glacier National Park in Montana sits at the northern border of the United States. In combination with Canada's Waterton Lakes National Park, the area is the first International Peace Park, declared in 1932 to... More
The Aral Sea is actually not a sea at all. It is an
The Aral Sea is actually not a sea at all. It is an immense lake, a body of fresh water, although that particular description of its contents might now be more a figure of speech than practical fact. In the la... More
TIROS NASA Image of The Day. NASA public domain image colelction.
On April 1, 1960, a satellite designed by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) launched to become the nation's first weather satellite. That satellite, the Television InfraRed Observational Satellite, or TIRO... More
In the Beginning NASA Image of The Day
NASA's first administrator T. Keith Glennan shows then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, Chairman of the Senate's Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee, a sample of the aluminized Mylar film used to fabricate the ... More
Cloud Formations off the West Coast of South America: Image of the Day
Off the west coast of South America, an intricate network of clouds presented a spectacular view to the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/ (MODIS) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov/ Te... More
Ancient Bristlecones in Schulman Grove: Image of the Day
The bristlecone pines of California's White Mountains are some of Earth's oldest living things. The ancient trees -- at least one over 4,700 years old -- live in an otherwise barren environment. Cold and dry co... More
Dust Storm over the Aral Sea: Image of the Day
Straddling the border between Kazakhstan in the north and Uzbekistan in the south, the Aral Sea was once the fourth-largest lake in the world. Soviet-era irrigation diverted water, earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Ne... More
Built as a monument to the favorite wife of the Mughal
Built as a monument to the favorite wife of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, the Taj Mahal has watched over the city of Agra, India, since the mid-seventeenth century with its pillars of gleaming white marble. By... More
Cloud Formations off the West Coast of South America: Image of the Day
Off the west coast of South America, an intricate network of clouds presented a spectacular view to the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/ (MODIS) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov/ Te... More
Page, Arizona: Image of the Day
This isolated community near the northern Arizona border is of special interest because of its origin and location. Unlike other towns in the area, Page was created in 1957 to house workers and their families ... More
Saturn I Booster Tests NASA Image of The Day
A Saturn I booster model is set up for testing in NASA Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center's Supersonic Wind Tunnel in 1960. The model had eight working rocket engines with 250 pounds of thrust each. The tests si... More
Windswept Shores of the Aral Sea: Image of the Day
As recently as the 1960's the Aral Sea of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan was the fourth-largest inland sea in the world. Since then, its water volume has dropped by about 80% due to extensive irrigation systems deve... More
Puncak Jaya, Indonesia: Image of the Day
The Seven Summits are the highest peaks on each of the Earth's seven continents. However, there is some debate about whether to count New Zealand and Oceania (which adds the Pacific Islands and the Indonesian... More
Ascension Island: Image of the Day
In the southern Atlantic Ocean roughly midway between central South America and central Africa, sits Ascension Island. A small, rocky, volcanic outcrop covered in many places by lava flows and cinder cones of d... More
Lake Nasser, Egypt: Image of the Day
One of the world's largest artificial lakes, Lake Nasser is named after the Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, who is largely responsible for the lake's creation. President Nasser decided to build the Aswan... More
Ushering in the Future NASA Image of The Day
Dr. Werhner von Braun, Marshall Space Flight Center's first director, points out a detail regarding the first stage of the Saturn rocket to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. President Eisenhower was at Marshall t... More
In 2000, the Aral Sea was in /IOTD/view.php?id=1396
In 2000, the Aral Sea was in /IOTD/view.php?id=1396 grave condition. This inland sea, which was once Earth's fourth-largest lake, had been steadily shrinking since the 1960s, when Soviet-era irrigation projec... More
Inspecting Friendship 7 NASA Image of The Day
Astronaut John Glenn inspects artwork that will be painted on the outside of his Mercury spacecraft, which he nicknamed Friendship 7. On Feb. 20, 1962, Glenn lifted off into space aboard his Mercury Atlas (MA-6... More
Rice University Accepts Exploration Award
During the half-time ceremonies of the Rice vs. Navy football game Oct. 10, 2009, Johnson Space Center Director Mike Coats presented Rice University President David Leebron with the Ambassador of Exploration Aw... More
Lunar Lander Model NASA Image of The Day
This 1963 model depicts an early Apollo lunar lander concept, called a ''bug.'' Engineers designed several possible vehicle shapes for both manned and unmanned landers. In 1961, Bruce Lundin, former director of... More
Mercury-Atlas 9 NASA Image of The Day
Technicians were performing pre-launch testing of the Mercury-Atlas 9 (MA9) on Launch Pad 14 at Cape Canaveral when this photo was taken on May 14, 1963. A day later on May 15, Gordon Cooper successfully pilote... More
Mt. Everest NASA Image of The Day
On May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary, from New Zealand, and Tenzing Norgay, from Nepal, became the first humans to successfully climb to the peak of Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. They were part of ... More
Topography of Bali: Image of the Day
The volcanic nature of the island of Bali is evident in this shaded relief image generated with data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). Bali, along with several smaller islands, make up one of ... More
Shiretoko National Park: Image of the Day
In the northeastern corner of the northernmost Japanese Island, Hokkaido's Shiretoko Peninsula provides the mostly temperate country with a taste of the Arctic. Reaching out into the Sea of Okhotsk, the peninsu... More
Shiretoko National Park: Image of the Day
In the northeastern corner of the northernmost Japanese Island, Hokkaido's Shiretoko Peninsula provides the mostly temperate country with a taste of the Arctic. Reaching out into the Sea of Okhotsk, the peninsu... More
Denver Skyline: Image of the Day
On the high plains at the base of the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the Mile High City rose up on the hopes of gold miners, who founded the city in 1858 after the discovery of gold in the waters at ... More
Delaware Water Gap: Image of the Day
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area is a National Park on the border of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The park runs roughly 40 miles along the Delaware River and the Appalachian Mountains, which are i... More
Roy S. Estess NASA Image of The Day
NASA remembers Roy Estess, former Stennis Space Center Director, who passed away on June 25, 2010. Estess had a 37-year career at NASA, which began in 1966 where he was a test engineer at NASA's Stennis Space C... More
Shadow on the Moon NASA Image of The Day
Surveyor 1, the first of the Surveyor missions to make a successful soft landing, proved the validity of the spacecraft's design and landing technique. In addition to transmitting more than 11,000 pictures, Sur... More
Parkfield Earthquake: Image of the Day
On September 28, 2004 a magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck Central California near the town of Parkfield. The quake caused no injuries and minimal property damage, but was of great interest to American geologists.... More
Lake Chad as seen from Apollo-7 in 1968 : Image of the Day
The top photograph was taken by Apollo-7 crew in October 1968 during a mission to test control of a spacecraft moving into different orbits eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?UID=SSEOP&PWD=sseop&mission=A... More
Viewing History NASA Image of The Day
Adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center thousands of spectators camped out on beaches and roads to watch the launch of Apollo 11, which launched at 9:32 a.m. Eastern on July 16, 1969. The launch of Apollo 11 was t... More
Freedom 7 NASA Image of The Day
On May 5, 1961, at 9:34am EST NASA astronaut Alan Shepard launched about his Mercury Redstone spacecraft, nicknamed Freedom 7, to become the first American in space. In this image, fellow astronaut Gus Grissom ... More
Etang du Fangassier, Rhone River Delta: Image of the Day
Economic development often finds itself at odds with wildlife, but one case in France produced the opposite result. In 1969, the country established Etang du Fangassier, a lagoon in the Camargue region. The sal... More
Bringing It All Together NASA Image of The Day
This image, taken on March 4, 1969, shows the stacking of the S-II stage for the Saturn 506 in the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building in preparation for the Apollo 11 launch. On July 16, 1969, the... More
Shepard Completes His Mission NASA Image of The Day
On May 5, 1961, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard piloted his Freedom 7 Mercury capsule in a 15-minute suborbital flight, becoming America's first astronaut. In this image, he is shown being hoisted aboard a U.S. Mar... More
Apollo 11 Comes Home NASA Image of The Day
The Apollo 11 crew await pickup by a helicopter from the USS Hornet, prime recovery ship for the historic lunar landing mission. The fourth man in the life raft is a United States Navy underwater demolition tea... More
Celestial Wonderland NASA Image of The Day
This high forward oblique view of Rima Ariadaeus on the moon was photographed by the Apollo 10 crew in May 1969. Center point coordinates are located at 17 degrees, 5 minutes east longitude and 5 degrees, 0 min... More
Etang du Fangassier, Rhone River Delta: Image of the Day
Economic development often finds itself at odds with wildlife, but one case in France produced the opposite result. In 1969, the country established Etang du Fangassier, a lagoon in the Camargue region. The sal... More
Niagara Falls: Image of the Day
The Niagara River (a Native American word for ''at the neck''), linking Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, flows around Goat Island, and then plummets over Horseshoe and American Falls, better known as Niagara Falls. ... More
Young and Old Tibesti Volcanoes: Image of the Day
Two nearby volcanoes in the Tibesti Range Mountains in northern Chad exhibit dramatically different surface characteristics in a topographic image. The difference in their appearance is due to their relative ag... More
Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania: Image of the Day
Olduvai Gorge is a 50-km-long (30-mile), 90-meter-deep (295-foot) ravine located in the eastern Serengeti Plains of northern Tanzania, within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. According to geologists, the regi... More
Deforestation in Santa Cruz, Bolivia: Image of the Day
These images from 1986 and 2001 are for an area of tropical dry forest lying east of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. Since the mid-1980s, the resettlement of people from the Altiplano (the Andean high plains... More
The state of Rondonia, in southern Brazil, is part
The state of Rondonia, in southern Brazil, is part of the Amazonian ''Arc of Deforestation,'' a belt of rapidly disappearing tropical forest that follows the southern margin of the Amazon and bends northeastwar... More
Tarawa and Maiana Atolls: Image of the Day
The Republic of Kiribati is an island nation consisting of some 33 atolls near the equator in the central Pacific. Before Europeans found the islands, they had been inhabited for two millennia by indigenous Mic... More
After a 4,400-kilometer (2,734-mile) journey north
After a 4,400-kilometer (2,734-mile) journey north from the mountains of south-central Russia, the Lena River fractures into myriad streams that fan out across the tundra and empty into the Arctic Ocean via the... More
Shrinking Lake Chapala: Image of the Day
Resting in a tectonic basin south of Guadalajara, Lake Chapala is the largest lake in Mexico. The lake and other wetlands in the Rio Lerma watershed are important sites for migratory, rare, and endemic (found n... More
The state of Rondonia, in southern Brazil, is part
The state of Rondonia, in southern Brazil, is part of the Amazonian ''Arc of Deforestation,'' a belt of rapidly disappearing tropical forest that follows the southern margin of the Amazon and bends northeastwar... More
Volcan Villarrica in Chile: Image of the Day
The top image above is a false-color satellite image (Bands 4-3-1) collected over Volcan Villarrica (Chile) on February 13, 2003, by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on... More
Earthrise NASA Image of The Day
The Apollo 16 crew captured this Earthrise with a handheld Hasselblad camera during the second revolution of the moon. Identifiable craters seen on the moon include Saha, Wyld and Saenger. Much of the terrain s... More
Portland, Mount Hood, & the Columbia River Gorge: Image of the Day
Portland, the largest city in Oregon, is located on the Columbia River at the northern end of the Willamette Valley. On clear days, Mount Hood highlights the Cascade Mountains backdrop to the east. The Columb... More
Kilauea Caldera: Image of the Day
If you were to rank all of the volcanoes in the world in terms of activity, Kilauea would come out near the top. The volcano is so given to eruptions that it is said to be home to Pele, the temperamental Hawaii... More
Magnitude 8.0 Earthquake off the Coast of Peru: Image of the Day
On August 15, 2007, at 6:40 p.m. local time, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Peru, 45 kilometers (25 miles) west-northwest of Chincha Alta, and 150 kilometers (95 miles) south-southeast of L... More
Mariner 10 NASA Image of The Day
On Nov. 3, 1973, the Mariner Venus/Mercury 1973 spacecraft, also known as Mariner 10, was launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, becoming the first spacecraft designed to use gravity assist. Three months af... More
Magnitude 8.0 Earthquake off the Coast of Peru: Image of the Day
On August 15, 2007, at 6:40 p.m. local time, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Peru, 45 kilometers (25 miles) west-northwest of Chincha Alta, and 150 kilometers (95 miles) south-southeast of L... More
New Orleans, Louisiana: Image of the Day
On Sunday, February 3, roughly 800 million eyes from all over the world will be trained on the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans as the New England Patriots battle the St. Louis Rams for the NFL Championship i... More
Logging in Northern Republic of Congo: Image of the Day
Logging has impacts on forests that go beyond the loss of trees themselves. It can change the number and diversity of other organisms in the ecosystem, open remote areas to poaching, increase the likelihood tha... More
Bruggen Glacier, Chile: Image of the Day
The Expedition 3 crew of the International Space Station caught a rare glimpse of the massive ice fields and glaciers of Patagonia early in the afternoon on September 25, 2001. This part of the South American ... More
Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Image of the Day
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddles the ridgeline of the Appalachian Mountains in the southern United States. The border between Tennesse to the west and North Carolina to the east runs vertically... More
Urban Growth in Jakarta, Indonesia: Image of the Day
Located on the northwest tip of the island of Java, the city of Jakarta looks out over the Java Sea. Like many urban areas all over the world, Jakarta, Indonesia, is growing. Since 1976, the population has more... More
New River Gorge, West Virginia: Image of the Day
In southern West Virginia, the New River carves a rugged, steep-sided gorge through a plateau of ancient sandstone and shale. From its headwaters high in the mountains of North Carolina, the New flows northward... More