Videos

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 July 2023, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Uncrewed Systems Office (NUSO) and the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center conducted a joint field campaign in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

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.

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.

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.

A winter of heavy rain causes flooding in California's Tulare Basin, threatening cropland. The basin was once the site of a large lake that appeared naturally every winter as rainfall and snowmelt from the nearby Sierra Nevada mountain range flowed down and filled the basin. It was even known as the largest lake west of the Mississippi River.

An iceberg the size of Houston broke from the Brunt Ice Shelf Antarctica on January 22nd, 2023. Landsat images show the area one day before the break and several days after. A feature named Chasm One had been lengthening for years, and it finally reached all the way across the shelf.

Cheyenne Bottoms is the largest inland wetland in the United States. Water normally diverts from rivers into the vast marshland. The wetland water level changes with precipitation and surface flows. For example, 2007 was a wet year. And 2013 was a dry year.

USGS researchers teamed up for a biological soil crust (biocrust) remote sensing and field data campaign near Moab, Utah in February of 2022.

Permafrost is ground that has been frozen for at least two years. With the warming climate, permafrost across Alaska is thawing and greenhouse gases such as methane are released as a result. Ecologist Kristen Manies of the U.S.

The Landsat program conceived of in the 1960s, has been running longer than any remote sensing program. The idea was simple: position a satellite in a nearly polar orbit fixed to the solar angle so that each daytime pass would cross the equator at roughly the same local time.

Fissures opened on the Cumbre Vieja volcano on September 19. It's the first time it has erupted since 1971.

Social scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Fort Collins Science Center – in collaboration with the USGS National Land Imaging Program – conduct Earth observation user case studies using qualitative research methods.

Social scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Fort Collins Science Center – in collaboration with the USGS National Land Imaging Program – conduct Earth observation user case studies using qualitative research methods.

The Earth As Art project began in the early 2000s, and its original intent remains the same: to produce images that do not look like satellite images at first glance.

The Earth As Art project began in the early 2000s, and its original intent remains the same: to produce images that do not look like satellite images at first glance.

A prolonged dry spell has sparked woes over water availability and wildfire in the western United States.