Earth Observatory

By Adam Voiland, NASA Earth Observatory November 25, 2023Image of the Taklamakan desert in China’s Tarim Basin acquired on November 11, 2023, by the MODIS sensor on NASA’s Aqua satellite.Flanked by mountain ranges on three sides, the basin in northwestern China sees frequent dust storms.The Taklamakan desert, located in China’s Tarim Basin, is one of the driest, most barren expanses on Earth. Flanked by mountain ranges on three sides, it is parched by the resulting rain shadow. In fact, many parts of it receive between 10…

Satellite view around Anchorage, Alaska, captured by NASA’s Aqua satellite on October 26, 2023.Satellite view around Anchorage, Alaska, captured by NASA’s Aqua satellite on November 19, 2023.The Alaskan city of Anchorage received record snowfall in November 2023.Winter weather arrived in force in Southcentral Alaska in 2023. Anchorage logged its snowiest November since recordkeeping began in 1953—and it reached that mark just over halfway through the month. In addition, a nearby mountain pass came close to the national…

Natural-color satellite image of farmland around Peoria, Illinois, captured by the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 on October 22, 2022.Much of the canned pumpkin that ends up in Thanksgiving pies and soups came from Central Illinois.Pumpkins, a type of winter squash native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, are among the oldest domesticated plants. Archaeological evidence indicates that several different species of pumpkins were independently domesticated between 4,000 and 10,000 years ago in…

Satellite image of icebergs trapped in fast ice east of East Antarctica’s West Ice Shelf acquired on October 18, 2023, with the Operational Land Imager-2 on Landsat 9.A scientist spotted a jade hue in the sea ice fastened to the coast of East Antarctica.Jan Lieser has analyzed countless satellite images of frozen seawater clinging to the coast of East Antarctica. This ice—known as landfast ice or simply fast ice—regulates the seaward flow of land ice and provides habitat for animals. The ice’s textures can be varied but…

Satellite image of Lake Powell acquired on September 23, 2022, by the Operational Land Imager 2 on Landsat 9.Satellite image of Lake Powell acquired on October 20, 2023, by the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8.A wet winter in western states provided a short-term reprieve to the decades-long drought in the reservoir.After falling to record lows in early 2023, water levels in Lake Powell—the second-largest reservoir in the United States—rebounded in the summer of 2023. Above-average snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains…