Images

Landsat 9 captured this image of heart-shaped McCartney Mountain on September 20, 2025. At an elevation of over 8,300 feet, the mountain is the high point of a small sub-range of the Highland Mountains in southwestern Montana. 

This graphic below displays the number of Landsat-related publications (orange line) starting in 1970. While publications decreased during the Commercialization Era, research rebounded greatly after the USGS open data policy decision in 2008.

This map displays the scenes acquired by Landsat 4, Landsat 5, and Landsat 7 satellites, on the World Reference System (WRS-2). These scenes were initially downlinked and stored at Landsat International Cooperator Ground Stations. 

This map displays the scenes acquired by Landsat 1, Landsat 2, and Landsat 3 satellites, on the World Reference System (WRS-1). These scenes were initially downlinked and stored at Landsat International Cooperator Ground Stations. 

The Landsat Benefits Webpage Banner displays some ways of how Landsat data benefits the United States. 

Visit the Landsat Benefits, State by State webpage to see how Landsat benefits your favorite State! 

This graphic displays the cumulative volume of all operational Landsat products downloaded from the USGS EROS Landsat archive since December 2008 (FY2009). The release of Landsat Collection 2 products in 2020, which improved data quality and accessibility, helped drive downloads upward. 

This graph shows the number of Landsat Collection 2 Level-1 scene-based products that are available for download from the USGS Archive. Please note that data from earlier Landsat missions, even those that have ended, continues to be added to the archive through the Landsat Global Archive Consolidation (LGAC) program.

This graphic displays the number of Landsat Collection 2 Level-2 scene-based science products that are available for download from the USGS Archive. Level-2 science products were first introduced with the Collection 2 release in December, 2020. The Level-2 Science Product includes surface reflection and surface temperature data.

The Landsat 4 satellite was launched July 16, 1982, and ushered in many “firsts” that propelled the Landsat missions that followed. 

This Landsat 9 image shows the Apalachicola River and the Apalachicola Bay in Florida’s Panhandle. The river —Florida’s largest in terms of water volume discharge— follows the western boundary of heavy forest and is home to great diversity of freshwater fish species. 

November’s  final weekend brought snowfall to much of the northern United States. This Landsat 9 image, acquired on December 1st, highlights an area along the South Platte River near the point where the Missouri, Nebraska, and Colorado borders meet. 

In a September 21, 1966 press release, Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall announced that the DOI was launching "Project EROS (Earth Resources Observation Satellites)." Udall's vision was to observe the Earth for the benefit of all. 

This animation shows Treasure Valley, part of the Snake River Valley and home to the Boise, Idaho, metro area. The Boise Mountains lie to the east, and cropland and pasture/hay land lie to the west. The area’s population has seen significant growth in recent decades, far more than doubling between 1990 and now to above 800,000.

This animation shows Annual NLCD land cover data on the left that was derived from Landsat imagery on the right. It illustrates the effects of the 1992 Fountain Fire in northern California and much of the forested area’s eventual recovery. The Fountain Fire burned about 64,000 acres, almost all of it privately owned.

Annual National Land Cover Database (NLCD) and Landsat animations of a portion of the Okefenokee Plain in Georgia.

This Landsat 9 image showing the Beaufort Sea shoreline off of Alaska and Canada is just one of the scenes captured and processed on July 13, 2025— that day, the USGS EROS archive reached a milestone of one million Landsat 9 Level-1 products.  This false color image was made with bands 6,5, and 4 from the Operational Land Imager. 

This map displays the geographic coverage of descending (daytime) image acquisition priorities for Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 on a typical day. The priority scale denotes 0 (low priority) to 100 (high priority).

This image shows the spectral bandpasses for the sensors on all Landsat satellites. 

This Landsat 9 image of central Chile, acquired July 10, 2025, uses the shortwave infrared, near infrared, and red spectral bands ( bands 6,5,4) to highlight land cover. In this combination, healthy vegetation appears bright green, while snow and ice in the Andes Mountains show in bright blue.

The Landsat 7 satellite was launched on April 15, 1999.  The mission was decommissioned on June 4, 2025.  The data collected by the satellite's sensor from 1999 to 2024 is a key part of Landsat’s 50-plus year record of imaging our planet’s surface and are preserved in the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center archive.  

The Marquesas Keys are situated at the western edge of the Key West National Wildlife Refuge in Florida and are part of the Florida Keys Wilderness. The islands are at a low elevation (about 6-10 feet above sea level), and have beaches tangled with mangroves that allow protection for wildlife resources.