Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center

An animation of the growth of a solar farm, created using Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection data.

Animation of land cover change in the Black Hills, created using Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection data from the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center.

EarthExplorer helps users get to exactly the scenes they want. The Additional Criteria tab helps users pick scenes that meet specific requirements. 

This video will show you how to utilize the Additional Criteria tab in EarthExplorer.

You can find additional videos on tools and types of imagery available on this website: 

Unlike the South Pole, the geographic North Pole does not lie on a land mass. The Earth’s northern axis of rotation is in the Arctic Ocean, covered by shifting sea ice.

Landsat does not image the North Pole, which makes it an imperfect investigative tool for the detection of Santa’s workshop. 

It does, however, collect imagery over North Pole, Alaska, a small

In the 5th edition of Earth as Art, we continue to display the Earth as our eyes cannot see it—in creative combinations of visible and infrared light. 

These unreal views of farmland, coastlines, and snowscapes remind us of the powerfully artistic qualities of Earth’s land features.

Download these images for free at 

Lake Meredith National Recreation Area takes its name from the water body it surrounds in the Texas Panhandle. The Amarillo-area lake sees more than a million visitors a year.

Visitor numbers were much smaller just a few years ago. More than a decade of drought shrank water levels at Lake Meredith until a rush of rain in 2017 brought a turnaround.

Each week,

Route 66 was established in November 1926. Named “The Mother Road” by John Steinbeck, the route is a cultural icon of America, symbolizing mobility and freedom.

We mark the route with this satellite mosaic and a combination of historical aerial photos and current aerial imagery from the USGS EROS Center archive.

Each week, the Earth Resources Observation and

Whether fully or in part, staff at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center have contributed to the work done on the National Climate Assessment (NCA) and associated reports that have been released since passage of the U.S. Global Change Research Act of 1990.

Antarctica’s interior is circled by glacial ice flows that move outward from the frozen continent’s surface.

Imagery collected over Antarctica by satellites like Landsat is typically marked by highly reflective snow and ice, but isolated pockets of wind-swept glacial ice glow with a distinct blue.

Each week, the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS)

Satellites have captured views of the numerous major fires burning in California.

An image acquired on November 9, 2018, from NASA’s MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite shows smoke pouring out of two major fires, the Camp Fire and the Woolsey Fire, which both ignited the day before.

In the north, the Camp Fire quickly became the deadliest wildfire in the

This short video provides a quick demonstration of the Area Sample using the Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples (AρρEEARS). 

AppEEARS provides a simple and efficient way to subset, transform, and visualize geospatial data distributed from a variety of federal archives. The following topics are discussed in the video: how to submit an