Videos

The world’s largest iceberg floats freely in the Southern Ocean.

Iceberg A23a is a 1,500 square mile ice mass larger than the state of Rhode Island. A23a weighs approximately 1 trillion tons and measures around 1,300 feet thick.

The USGS EROS Landsat archive recently reached a milestone of 12 million Landsat Collection 2 Level-1 products. These are available for download at no charge. The image representing this milestone displays a sprawling desert landscape and contains a multitude of agricultural, geological, and urban features.

The Klamath River, flowing from the high desert interior of Oregon and through the redwood forests of California, once produced large runs of salmon and trout. However, the construction of hydroelectric dams, beginning in 1918, blocked fish migration, encroached on Indigenous culture, and impacted water quality.

Prolonged drought has lowered water levels in Laguna Bustillos in Chihuahua State, Mexico, killing thousands of fish.

The U.S.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) took an interest in uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) technologies in the early 2000s, when UAS were predominantly being used for military applications.

The Smokehouse Creek Fire started about 1 mile north of Stinnett, Texas on February 26th, 2024. Three days later, the fire had consumed over 1 million acres. With a total area of 1,654 square miles, it became the largest fire on record in Texas. That's larger than New York's Long Island.

In support of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Southwest Biological Science Center research, the USGS National Uncrewed Systems Office (NUSO) conducted uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) remote sensing flights near Moab, Utah in May 2023 for multi-scale carbon sequestration research on public lands.  

The NUSO and the National Park Service (NPS) Heritage Document Programs partnered in May 2024 to perform a UAS-based 3D scan of Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial. 

Like many lakes in northern Minnesota, Mille Lacs near Brainerd experienced an uncommonly warm winter this year, with lower than average snowfall. Natural color Landsat images from the past ten Februarys reveal a stark change in 2024.

On March 3rd, near South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Landsat 9 captured this dream-like image. This natural color view shows a weather pattern known as a “Von Karman vortex street," caused by prevailing winds from the southeast.

The bushfire season in northern Australia generally runs from May to October. 2023 was an especially intense year in the north. Select infrared imagery from the Landsat archive was used here to produce a rolling mosaic timelapse of the landscape in eight-day segments.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is set to become the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa.

Located near the Sudan border in Ethiopia, the promising and controversial project impacts communities up and down the Blue Nile.

Landsat sensors capture the region in false color infrared, emphasizing the reservoir's boundary.

The home of the Landsat satellite archive is surrounded by corn and soybean fields. The archive is kept at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (EROS) located near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. EROS is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

The Amazon Rainforest in South America typically experiences its drier season between the months of July and October. Satellite imagery from Landsats 9 and 8 show severe drought conditions in 2023 in comparison to 2022 when the area received average rainfall.

No Place for Flamingos on Fuente de Piedra.

Fuente de Piedra, a saltwater lagoon in southern Spain, is an important breeding site for thousands of flamingos. In 2023, the shallow wetland nearly completely dried up, leaving little space for the birds. Only a few dozen birds were seen on the lagoon this year, a situation that could impact tourism.

As permafrost soils in the Arctic warm and thaw, greenhouse gases including methane are released into the atmosphere. USGS Ecologist Kristen Manies of the USGS Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center (GMEGSC) is researching low-cost ways to measure methane emissions across these changing ecosystems.

For 50 years, the people of EROS have overcome difficulties and celebrated triumphs together, always centered on providing a perspective of the Earth that helps us better understand its condition. This video, timed with the 50th anniversary celebration at EROS in August of 2023, explores the center's history.

In August 2023, the USGS National Uncrewed Systems Office (NUSO) participated in a collaborative field campaign to collect remote sensing data over agricultural crop fields in California's Central Valley.

Landsat satellites move in a polar orbit from north to south at over 27,000 kilometers per hour. For the ten meter antenna at EROS, a typical flyover, also known as a pass, lasts 14 minutes from horizon to horizon.

Smoke filled the skies over western Canada and even much of the United States in May 2023. The source was several wildfires in Alberta and British Columbia.

Near the end of May, rain and cooler temperatures finally brought some relief for the out-of-control fires.