Images

Among countries with accelerated rates of deforestation—Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Uruguay, and Paraguay among them—Cambodia ranks above them all with an annual loss of 14.4 percent of its forests between 2001 and 2014, according to researchers at the University of Maryland, who used Landsat data to track their rates.

Landsat satellites have helped document retreating glaciers worldwide. In this 2017 Landsat 8 image, glacial retreat is revealed in the rugged wilderness region of Patagonia, site of the largest contiguous areas of ice cover outside Antarctica.

Wildfires fueled by dry conditions, high temperatures, and strong winds are scorching central Chile at a level Chilean officials say they haven’t seen in decades.

A decade of drought in California has eased after the first month of 2017 thanks to heavy rains and snow, a fact that Landsat images are helping to confirm.

This aerial photo shows downtown Houston, Texas, and the surrounding area in January 2017 shortly before the city hosted the Super Bowl. Public domain photo by Glenn Fawcett of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The Operational Land Imager (OLI) onboard Landsat 8 captured this image an eruption from Ethiopia's Erte Ale volcano in late January of 2017.

This Indian Space Research Organization LISS-3 image of the Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay region, acquired on January 25, 2017, shows the landscape along the densely populated U.S. East coast. Ecosystems and sea-level rise are among the regional landscape changes that satellite imagery helps to monitor. 

Heavy rains in late December 2016 and early January 2017 are affecting soybean production in Argentina's bread-basket provinces while impacting soy prices worldwide.

Since mid-December 2016, roughly two dozen wildfires in the Pampas region of Argentina have consumed almost 2.5 million acres while unleashing giant plumes of dense smoke above the rural landscapes.

Landsat 8, Longyangxia solar farm, China, OLI

Even with the calming blue tones, there is an unsettling feeling in the jagged marks that lead to a circular feature. This feature is Gweni-Fada Crater, a meteorite impact crater in the Ennedi Plateau of northern Chad. In addition to the tension between calm and storm, there is a sense that this scene could pass as a view on another planet.

A new atlas named Landscapes of West Africa: A Window on a Changing World tells the story of transformations and trends across many lands in West Africa, including this look at the threat of human activities in the Okomu Forest Reserve in southern Nigeria.

Arkansas, officially “The Natural State,” is a state of mountains, valleys, dense woodland and fertile plains. Its clear lakes and streams and abundant wildlife help to make tourism one of the state’s most important industries.

Capital Little Rock

Image Source Landsat 8

LANDFIRE's Existing Vegetation Type layer from the Data Distribution Site.

Vermont was the first state admitted to the union after the original 13 colonies. Vermont’s capital, Montpelier, is the smallest state capital with a population of less than 8,000. 

Capital Montpelier

Image Source Landsat 8

Population 643,077

Sentinel 2 image, China's Tian Shan mountains

Erg Chebbi, Morocco

Snow covers the landscape in southwestern Minnesota just a day before the winter solstice. It may look like a stark black and white image, but it is really a natural color image. The Minnesota River flows from the upper left to the lower right.

Landsat 7's Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) sensor captured the image that shows the white covering on the caramel-colored landscape southwest of the Algerian community of Ain Sefra, a town sometimes referred to as the gateway to the desert.

Tranquil colors and patterns intermingle near Argentina’s Colorado River, which runs across the upper one-third of the image. The calming textures are interrupted by a violent splash in the center, the result of volcanic action from the Auca Mahuida Volcanic Field from long ago.

In June 1998, a pilot discovered a strange sight in the Australian outback that wasn't there before—a huge outline of what appeared to be an Aboriginal man throwing either a boomerang or a stick. It turned out to be a geoglyph, which is a design on the ground typically made of natural elements and best viewed from above.