Images

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. 

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 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. 

In late May 2025, Landsat satellites captured imagery of active fires in north-central Saskatchewan, Canada. The fires have caused evacuation orders and closed highways. While the natural color image shows the massive smoke covering the land, false color images allow us to see through the smoke and see the areas of active burning more clearly.

By layering over 10 years of cloud-free Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 images, we can see the bright trails of ship traffic in major U.S. ports and harbors. Check out these striking patterns from popular shipping waterways, captured using Landsat’s panchromatic band. Just another example of how Landsat helps us understand the world from above.

This picture is the site of the Big Multi-Agency Campaign (BigMAC), a comprehensive field exercise aimed at assessing current technologies that might be used for validation of surface products derived from satellite imagery, The exercise was held in Brookings, South Dakota in August 2021. 

This Landsat 8 image of northern Greenland, acquired May 10, 2025, uses the natural color combination of red, green, and blue spectral bands (bands 4,3,2). Snow and ice appear bright white and exposed rock appears brown. The scene features the Ryder Glacier, C.H. Ostenfeld Glacier, and Victoria Fjord, along with part of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

This Landsat 8 image of southern Namibia, acquired May 7, 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 bare ground and desert landscapes show in shades of brown and tan.

How does your state use Landsat satellite data?  Visit the Landsat’s View of the USA webpage to find how Landsat benefits each of United States. You can download a satellite image, put together an online puzzle, or read a USGS Fact Sheet for your selected state!

In April 2025, significant flooding occurred in an area of the Lake Eyre Basin in Southern Australia and Queensland states in Australia. 

The Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 satellites both passed over the area and captured the dramatic imagery used in this mosaic of the area. 

In April 2025, the Cullyamurra Waterhole, along the Cooper River in South Australia, reached a water level of 13.39 meters. This surpassed the 1974 record of 11.85 meters. 

Lake St. Clair is a freshwater lake that lies between the State of Michigan and Ontario, Canada. Sometimes it is referred to as “the sixth Great Lake". Lake St. Clair is smaller and shallower than the Great Lakes with a surface area of only 430 square miles and an average depth of 11 feet.

The EarthNow! Landsat Image Viewer displays imagery in near real-time as Landsat satellites orbit the Earth. Along with the near real-time video stream, EarthNow! also replays acquisition recordings from previous Landsat overpasses. When Landsat satellites are out of viewing range of a ground station, the most recent overpass is displayed.

In 2008 Landsat data became accessible to all users at no cost. This graphic displays the primary uses of Landsat data by volume. 

View more statistics on the Landsat Project Statistics page.

This Landsat 9 image of eastern South Dakota, acquired April 16, 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 bare agricultural fields show in shades of brown and tan, and water appears blue.