• Infrared views of Bardarbunga volcano eruption, Iceland

    Satellite imagery of Bardarbunga eruption has been scarce because of persistent cloud cover and a relatively small number of spacecraft that collect images at high latitudes but in the past few days NASA satellites have finally been able to observe the event from orbit.

  • “South Napa” M6.0 earthquake mapped from space

    ESA's fledgling satellite Sentinel-1A has been used to map the rupture caused by strong M6.0 earthquake that hit San Francisco Bay Area on August 24, 2014, the largest earthquake to impact the Bay Area since the 1989 M6.9 Loma Prieta earthqu

  • Record breaking temperatures cause largest wildfires in 40 years, Sweden

    Fast-growing fire has consumed Västmanland, Sweden, since July 31 and grew to become the largest Sweden has seen in 40 years. As of August 8, it had charred more than 150 square kilometers (60 square miles), killed one person, and forced thousands to evacuate…

  • Hundreds of fires covered central Africa in mid-July 2014

    Hundreds of fires covered central Africa in mid-July 2014, as the annual fire season continues across the region. Multiple red hotspots, which indicate areas of increased temperatures, are heavily sprinkled across the Congo (northwest), Angola (south), the Democrat

  • New images highlight U.S. air quality improvement

    Anyone living in a major U.S. city for the past decade may have noticed a change in the air. The change is apparent in new NASA satellite images unveiled this week that demonstrate the reduction of air pollution across the country.After ten years in orbit, the Ozone

  • Satellite animation of storms that flooded the Midwestern U.S.

    From June 16 through June 23 a series of thunderstorms dropped large amounts of rainfall on the Upper Midwest that caused flooding and spawned tornadoes. Visible and infrared data from NOAA's GOES-East satellite covering that period of time were compiled into an ani

  • El Hierro volcano helps to improve algorithms used by satellites

    Information provided by satellites on the amount of chlorophyll-A and the roughness of the sea following the eruption of the underwater volcano off the island of El Hierro (Spain) did not coincide with the actual data collected in situ by vessels carrying

  • Pyrocumulonimbus clouds above Funny River Fire seen from space

    Pyrocumulonimbus clouds, also known as pyroCb events, are thunderclouds formed when superheated air rises above an intense fire. They are the most extreme manifestation of a pyrocumulus cloud, accompanied by hail, lightning, and strong winds and can loft

  • Early wildfires season around Lake Baikal, Russia

    Temperatures around Russian Lake Baikal have skyrocketed in the past few weeks to 21 degrees Celsius (70 degrees F) prompting outbreaks of fire. Temperatures in this region are usually cooler until late July/early August when the bulk of the wildfires in

  • Massive wildfires in California as seen from space

    An intense heatwave coupled with the Santa Ana winds lead to an outbreak of multiple wildfires throughout California this week. Most of those wildfires originated from the Bernardo Fire, which had ignited on May 13, 2014. In just 24 hours t