landsat

Google Maps and Google Earth Just Got a High Res Update

Google Maps and Google Earth just got a whole lot sharper thanks to NASA and its Landsat 8 satellite. Using beautiful high-res imagery captured by the new satellite, Google has built a better high-res cloud-free mosaic of the world based on some 700 trillion pixels of data.

Photo of the Massive Wildfire in Alaska, As Seen from Space

When it comes to natural disasters like hurricanes or wildfires, not even standard aerial photography can really cut it. To capture something that occurs on such a massive scale, you need a massive view, and so these disasters are often best visualized by NASA's satellites.

The 5 Most Artistic Satellite Photographs of Earth Captured by NASA

Satellite photographs of Earth are often abstract and artsy, filled with strange colors, shapes, and textures. Some resemble the paintings of old masters, while others look like microscopic slides studied in biology classes. NASA's LandSat has snapped images from space for 40 years now, with many of the images going into a special collection by the U.S. Geological Survey called "Earth as Art". NASA recently decided to run a photo beauty contest to find out which of the satellite images in its collection are the most artistic.

Over 14,000 people ended up voting on the collection of 120+ images. The image above came in at number 5. It's titled "Lake Eyre Landsat 5 Acquired 8/5/2006".

40 Years of Landsat: Time-Lapse Videos Show Changes to Earth’s Face

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of Landsat, the longest-running program focused on acquiring satellite photos of Earth. The Landsat satellite snaps one completely photo of the Earth's surface every 16 days, and the petabytes of photos collected over the years have given scientists a view into how our planet's surface has changed over time, whether by natural or human-caused means. Google is currently working to make the photos easily enjoyable by the general public by transforming them into time-lapse videos.

Satellite Photographs Showing the Rapid Spread of Humans Across the Earth

2008 marked the first time in history that more of Earth's population lived in cities rather than in the countryside, and by 2050 nearly 70% of the world's population will reside in large cities. A new series of satellite photographs captured decades apart by NASA's Landsat department and the U.S. Geological Survey offers a striking look at how human cities have spread across the face of the Earth in just a few short years. The image above shows Las Vegas in 1984 and in 2011.