Palmanova, Italy: Image of the Day
On October 7, 1593, the superintendent of the Republic of Venice founded a revolutionary new kind of settlement: Palmanova. The city's founding date commemorated the victory of European forces (supplied primari... More
Palmanova, Italy: Image of the Day
On October 7, 1593, the superintendent of the Republic of Venice founded a revolutionary new kind of settlement: Palmanova. The city's founding date commemorated the victory of European forces (supplied primari... More
Lake Mead in Drought: Image of the Day
Water is the lifeblood of the western United States. Not only does it sustain municipal drinking supplies and agriculture, it is also one of the primary sources of electricity. Dams along the Colorado and other... More
Timbuktu NASA Image of The Day
Timbuktu in the West African nation of Mali is at the intersection of an east-west and a north-south Trans Saharan trade route across the Sahara. The city-state was an intellectual and spiritual capital in the ... More
Aves Island: Image of the Day
Named Isla de Aves in Spanish, (meaning ''Island of the Birds'') Aves Island lies west of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. It provides a nesting site to green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) and, of course, b... More
Gunung Bromo, Indonesia: Image of the Day
Gunung Bromo (Mount Bromo) is a small but active volcanic cinder cone on the Indonesian island of Java. Bromo is located in the center of the Sandsea Caldera, itself only a portion of the larger www.volcano.si... More
Magnitude 8.0 Earthquake off the Coast of Peru: Image of the Day
On August 15, 2007, at 6:40 p.m. local time, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Peru, 45 kilometers (25 miles) west-northwest of Chincha Alta, and 150 kilometers (95 miles) south-southeast of L... More
Magnitude 8.0 Earthquake off the Coast of Peru: Image of the Day
On August 15, 2007, at 6:40 p.m. local time, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Peru, 45 kilometers (25 miles) west-northwest of Chincha Alta, and 150 kilometers (95 miles) south-southeast of L... More
1906 San Francisco Earthquake: Image of the Day
Along the coast of California, the tectonic plate underlying the Pacific Ocean and the plate harboring the North American landmass meet at the San Andreas Fault. Intense pressure builds up along the fault as th... More
1906 San Francisco Earthquake: Image of the Day
Along the coast of California, the tectonic plate underlying the Pacific Ocean and the plate harboring the North American landmass meet at the San Andreas Fault. Intense pressure builds up along the fault as th... More
Denali, Alaska: Image of the Day
The 6,194-meter-tall (20,320-foot) Mt. McKinley is a towering double-peaked mountain in the middle of the Alaska Range, made all the more impressive for rising thousands of feet above its neighbors. As the ta... More
Rainbow Bridge: Image of the Day
It's not hard to see why Native American cultures consider Rainbow Bridge sacred. The huge stone bridge that straddles this feeder canyon to the Colorado River in southern Utah is a dramatic and mysterious sigh... More
Rainbow Bridge: Image of the Day
It's not hard to see why Native American cultures consider Rainbow Bridge sacred. The huge stone bridge that straddles this feeder canyon to the Colorado River in southern Utah is a dramatic and mysterious sigh... More
Testing for the Future, NASA history collection
Testing advanced designs for high-speed aircraft in 1948, an engineer makes final calibrations to a model mounted in the 6 x 6 Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel at the NACA Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, Moffett Field... More
Berlin: Image of the Day
Inhabited since medieval times, the city of Berlin grew up out of settlements along the Spree River in a region of Europe long known as ''the Mark of Brandenburg.'' From its first recorded settlements in 1237, ... More
Lake Eildon National Park: Image of the Day
Australia is one of the driest continents on Earth: only Antarctic gets less annual precipitation. It also is the flattest continent, so there are few mountain ranges to wring additional moisture from the atmo... More
Deforestation in Madagascar: Image of the Day
All over the world humans struggle to provide themselves with food, housing, and comfortable lives, while preserving the natural environment so that it can continue to sustain animals, plants, and other living ... More
Niagara Falls: Image of the Day
The Niagara River (a Native American word for ''at the neck''), linking Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, flows around Goat Island, and then plummets over Horseshoe and American Falls, better known as Niagara Falls. ... More
Earthquake near San Simeon, California: Image of the Day
On the first day of winter, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake rumbled along the central California coast. In general terms, the tectonic activity of central California is caused by the northwestward slide of the plate... More
Krakatau Volcano National Park: Image of the Day
Nestled between the large Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra is the Krakatau Volcano National Park. In the fourth century, a single marine volcano stood at this site, but in 416 A.D., the caldera of the v... More
Mt. Ruapehu, New Zealand: Image of the Day
All around the world, people live in places where the threat of natural disaster is high. On the North Island of New Zealand, the Mount Ruapehu volcano is just such a threat. A towering, active stratovolcano (t... More
Mt. Everest NASA Image of The Day
On May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary, from New Zealand, and Tenzing Norgay, from Nepal, became the first humans to successfully climb to the peak of Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. They were part of ... More
The Netherlands: Image of the Day
Along the southern coast of the Netherlands, sediment-laden rivers have created a massive delta of islands and waterways in the gaps between the coastal dunes. After unusually severe spring tides devasted thi... More
Korean Demilitarized Zone: Image of the Day
On July 27, 1953, an armistice agreement brought fighting, though not the war itself, to an end in Korea. One legacy of that 50-year-old ceasefire has been the 250-km-long (148-mile) truce line bisecting the K... More
Sarychev Volcano NASA Image of The Day
A fortuitous orbit of the International Space Station allowed the astronauts this striking view of Sarychev volcano (Russia's Kuril Islands, northeast of Japan) in an early stage of eruption on June 12, 2009. S... More
The Mercury Project NASA Image of The Day
This 1958 scale model shows the Mercury capsule shape B design, indicating the position of the astronaut. Image credit: NASA NASA Identifier: 175339main_image_feature_812_ys_full
In the Beginning NASA Image of The Day
NASA's first administrator T. Keith Glennan shows then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, Chairman of the Senate's Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee, a sample of the aluminized Mylar film used to fabricate the ... More
Project Mercury Explained NASA Image of The Day
Less than a year after its birth, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency announced its first astronaut class, the Mercury Seven, on April 9, 1959. Project Mercury proved that humans could live and work in sp... More
Typhoon Rusa Scours Korea: Image of the Day
Over the weekend, Typhoon Rusa swept past the southern Japanese island of Kyushu and clobbered South Korea, killing more than 110 people and submerging thousands of homes. The typhoon can be seen just south of... More
Mt. Elbrus: Image of the Day
The Seven Summits are the highest peaks on each of the Earth's seven continents. However, there is disagreement about where the border between Europe and Asia is located in Russia. One commonly cited boundary... More
Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania: Image of the Day
Olduvai Gorge is a 50-km-long (30-mile), 90-meter-deep (295-foot) ravine located in the eastern Serengeti Plains of northern Tanzania, within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. According to geologists, the regi... More
Walter Schirra NASA Image of The Day
Pictured is astronaut Walter M. Schirra, one of the original seven astronauts for Mercury Project selected by NASA on April 27, 1959. Schirra's Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, during which he piloted his Sigma 7 space... More
Typhoon Rusa Scours Korea: Image of the Day
Over the weekend, Typhoon Rusa swept past the southern Japanese island of Kyushu and clobbered South Korea, killing more than 110 people and submerging thousands of homes. The typhoon can be seen just south of... More
Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan: Image of the Day
Two capital cities in Pakistan lie next to one another but display land use patterns that are entirely different. Islamabad, with a population of 901,000 (ca. 1998) boasts a master-planned rectangular street p... More
Dust Storm over the Aral Sea: Image of the Day
Straddling the border between Kazakhstan in the north and Uzbekistan in the south, the Aral Sea was once the fourth-largest lake in the world. Soviet-era irrigation diverted water, earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Ne... More
Windswept Shores of the Aral Sea: Image of the Day
As recently as the 1960's the Aral Sea of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan was the fourth-largest inland sea in the world. Since then, its water volume has dropped by about 80% due to extensive irrigation systems deve... More
Saturn I Booster Tests NASA Image of The Day
A Saturn I booster model is set up for testing in NASA Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center's Supersonic Wind Tunnel in 1960. The model had eight working rocket engines with 250 pounds of thrust each. The tests si... More
Glacier National Park: Image of the Day
Glacier National Park in Montana sits at the northern border of the United States. In combination with Canada's Waterton Lakes National Park, the area is the first International Peace Park, declared in 1932 to... More
Ushering in the Future NASA Image of The Day
Dr. Werhner von Braun, Marshall Space Flight Center's first director, points out a detail regarding the first stage of the Saturn rocket to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. President Eisenhower was at Marshall t... More
TIROS NASA Image of The Day
On April 1, 1960, a satellite designed by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) launched to become the nation's first weather satellite. That satellite, the Television InfraRed Observational Satellite, or TIRO... More
Lunar Lander Model NASA Image of The Day
This 1963 model depicts an early Apollo lunar lander concept, called a ''bug.'' Engineers designed several possible vehicle shapes for both manned and unmanned landers. In 1961, Bruce Lundin, former director of... More
Shepard Completes His Mission NASA Image of The Day
On May 5, 1961, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard piloted his Freedom 7 Mercury capsule in a 15-minute suborbital flight, becoming America's first astronaut. In this image, he is shown being hoisted aboard a U.S. Mar... More
Freedom 7 NASA Image of The Day
On May 5, 1961, at 9:34am EST NASA astronaut Alan Shepard launched about his Mercury Redstone spacecraft, nicknamed Freedom 7, to become the first American in space. In this image, fellow astronaut Gus Grissom ... More
Mariner 10 NASA Image of The Day
On Nov. 3, 1973, the Mariner Venus/Mercury 1973 spacecraft, also known as Mariner 10, was launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, becoming the first spacecraft designed to use gravity assist. Three months af... More
Puncak Jaya, Indonesia: Image of the Day
The Seven Summits are the highest peaks on each of the Earth's seven continents. However, there is some debate about whether to count New Zealand and Oceania (which adds the Pacific Islands and the Indonesian... More
The Original Seven NASA Image of The Day
In this 1960 photograph, the seven original Mercury astronauts participate in U.S. Air Force survival training exercises at Stead Air Force Base in Nevada. Pictured from left to right are: L. Gordon Cooper, M. ... More
Rice University Accepts Exploration Award
During the half-time ceremonies of the Rice vs. Navy football game Oct. 10, 2009, Johnson Space Center Director Mike Coats presented Rice University President David Leebron with the Ambassador of Exploration Aw... More
Inspecting Friendship 7 NASA Image of The Day
Astronaut John Glenn inspects artwork that will be painted on the outside of his Mercury spacecraft, which he nicknamed Friendship 7. On Feb. 20, 1962, Glenn lifted off into space aboard his Mercury Atlas (MA-6... More
Mercury-Atlas 9 NASA Image of The Day
Technicians were performing pre-launch testing of the Mercury-Atlas 9 (MA9) on Launch Pad 14 at Cape Canaveral when this photo was taken on May 14, 1963. A day later on May 15, Gordon Cooper successfully pilote... More
Topography of Bali: Image of the Day
The volcanic nature of the island of Bali is evident in this shaded relief image generated with data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). Bali, along with several smaller islands, make up one of ... More
Denver Skyline: Image of the Day
On the high plains at the base of the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the Mile High City rose up on the hopes of gold miners, who founded the city in 1858 after the discovery of gold in the waters at ... More
Delaware Water Gap: Image of the Day
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area is a National Park on the border of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The park runs roughly 40 miles along the Delaware River and the Appalachian Mountains, which are i... More
Roy S. Estess NASA Image of The Day
NASA remembers Roy Estess, former Stennis Space Center Director, who passed away on June 25, 2010. Estess had a 37-year career at NASA, which began in 1966 where he was a test engineer at NASA's Stennis Space C... More
Parkfield Earthquake: Image of the Day
On September 28, 2004 a magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck Central California near the town of Parkfield. The quake caused no injuries and minimal property damage, but was of great interest to American geologists.... More
Shadow on the Moon NASA Image of The Day
Surveyor 1, the first of the Surveyor missions to make a successful soft landing, proved the validity of the spacecraft's design and landing technique. In addition to transmitting more than 11,000 pictures, Sur... More
Etang du Fangassier, Rhone River Delta: Image of the Day
Economic development often finds itself at odds with wildlife, but one case in France produced the opposite result. In 1969, the country established Etang du Fangassier, a lagoon in the Camargue region. The sal... More
Lake Chad as seen from Apollo-7 in 1968 : Image of the Day
The top photograph was taken by Apollo-7 crew in October 1968 during a mission to test control of a spacecraft moving into different orbits eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?UID=SSEOP&PWD=sseop&mission=A... More
Bringing It All Together NASA Image of The Day
This image, taken on March 4, 1969, shows the stacking of the S-II stage for the Saturn 506 in the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building in preparation for the Apollo 11 launch. On July 16, 1969, the... More
Celestial Wonderland NASA Image of The Day
This high forward oblique view of Rima Ariadaeus on the moon was photographed by the Apollo 10 crew in May 1969. Center point coordinates are located at 17 degrees, 5 minutes east longitude and 5 degrees, 0 min... More
Apollo 11 Comes Home NASA Image of The Day
The Apollo 11 crew await pickup by a helicopter from the USS Hornet, prime recovery ship for the historic lunar landing mission. The fourth man in the life raft is a United States Navy underwater demolition tea... More
Etang du Fangassier, Rhone River Delta: Image of the Day
Economic development often finds itself at odds with wildlife, but one case in France produced the opposite result. In 1969, the country established Etang du Fangassier, a lagoon in the Camargue region. The sal... More
Viewing History NASA Image of The Day
Adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center thousands of spectators camped out on beaches and roads to watch the launch of Apollo 11, which launched at 9:32 a.m. Eastern on July 16, 1969. The launch of Apollo 11 was t... More
After a 4,400-kilometer (2,734-mile) journey north
After a 4,400-kilometer (2,734-mile) journey north from the mountains of south-central Russia, the Lena River fractures into myriad streams that fan out across the tundra and empty into the Arctic Ocean via the... More
Land Between The Lakes: Image of the Day
The Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area sits nestled between two artificial lakes, Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, created by dams placed across the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, respectively. Th... More
Volcan Villarrica in Chile: Image of the Day
The top image above is a false-color satellite image (Bands 4-3-1) collected over Volcan Villarrica (Chile) on February 13, 2003, by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on... More
Earthrise NASA Image of The Day
The Apollo 16 crew captured this Earthrise with a handheld Hasselblad camera during the second revolution of the moon. Identifiable craters seen on the moon include Saha, Wyld and Saenger. Much of the terrain s... More
Portland, Mount Hood, & the Columbia River Gorge: Image of the Day
Portland, the largest city in Oregon, is located on the Columbia River at the northern end of the Willamette Valley. On clear days, Mount Hood highlights the Cascade Mountains backdrop to the east. The Columb... More
New Orleans, Louisiana: Image of the Day
On Sunday, February 3, roughly 800 million eyes from all over the world will be trained on the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans as the New England Patriots battle the St. Louis Rams for the NFL Championship i... More
Urban Growth in Jakarta, Indonesia: Image of the Day
Located on the northwest tip of the island of Java, the city of Jakarta looks out over the Java Sea. Like many urban areas all over the world, Jakarta, Indonesia, is growing. Since 1976, the population has more... More
Logging in Northern Republic of Congo: Image of the Day
Logging has impacts on forests that go beyond the loss of trees themselves. It can change the number and diversity of other organisms in the ecosystem, open remote areas to poaching, increase the likelihood tha... More
Bruggen Glacier, Chile: Image of the Day
The Expedition 3 crew of the International Space Station caught a rare glimpse of the massive ice fields and glaciers of Patagonia early in the afternoon on September 25, 2001. This part of the South American ... More
Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Image of the Day
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddles the ridgeline of the Appalachian Mountains in the southern United States. The border between Tennesse to the west and North Carolina to the east runs vertically... More
New River Gorge, West Virginia: Image of the Day
In southern West Virginia, the New River carves a rugged, steep-sided gorge through a plateau of ancient sandstone and shale. From its headwaters high in the mountains of North Carolina, the New flows northward... More
Ocean Features from Seasat: Image of the Day
This image shows the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, northeast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Acquired by an imaging radar, the scene shows several features that would be difficult to observe with visible light. In t... More
First Appearance NASA Image of The Day
Space shuttle Enterprise made its first appearance mated to supportive propellant containers/boosters cluster, as it was rolled from the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center en route to the launch ... More
2003 Ozone Hole: Image of the Day
This year's Antarctic ozone hole is the second largest ever observed, according to scientists from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). T... More
Ghostly Spokes in the Rings
Scientists first saw these somewhat wedge-shaped, transient clouds of tiny particles known as ''spokes'' in images from NASA's Voyager spacecraft. They dubbed these features in Saturn's B ring ''spokes'' becaus... More
Maiden Voyage NASA Image of The Day
Astronauts Story Musgrave, left, and Don Peterson float in the cargo bay of the Earth-orbiting space shuttle Challenger during their April 7, 1983, spacewalk on the STS-6 mission. Their ''floating'' is restrict... More
Change in Global Plant Productivity: Image of the Day
Between 1982 and 1999, the climate became warmer, wetter, and sunnier in many parts of the world. Nearly 20 years of satellite observations of Earth's vegetation reveal that these changes increased the overall ... More
One Typhoon and Two Hurricanes : Image of the Day
The powerful super Typhoon Bilis hit Taiwan with 161 mph (260 kmh) winds on August 22, 2000. At times, the winds were strong enough to shake concrete buildings. In addition to the wind, heavy rains may bring f... More
Hurricane Lili Heads for Louisiana Landfall: Image of the Day
Characteristics of a strengthening Category 3 Hurricane Lili are apparent in these images from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), including a well-developed clearing at the hurricane eye. When th... More
Biscuit Fire, Oregon from NASA's New Satellite -- Aqua: Image of the D...
Roughly 438 miles (705 km) above the Earth, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite opened its Earth-view door on June 24 and took its first look at our... More
Lagoons of New Caledonia NASA Image of The Day
In 2008, UNESCO added the Lagoons of New Caledonia to the World Heritage Site list. The Lagoons comprise six marine clusters that represent the main diversity of coral reefs and associated ecosystems in the Fre... More
Mars Researchers Rendezvous on Remote Arctic Island: Image of the Day
Devon Island is situated in an isolated part of Canada's Nunavut Territory, and is usually considered to be the largest uninhabited island in the world. However, each summer since 1999, researchers from NASA's ... More
Haze Shadows Winter Crops in China: Image of the Day
For the most populous country in the world, maximizing agricultural production is a high priority. With nearly 1.3 billion people (United Nation estimates for 2001) to feed, China faces numerous challenges to f... More
This Landsat 7 image of clouds off the Chilean coast
This Landsat 7 image of clouds off the Chilean coast near the Juan Fernandez Islands (also known as the Robinson Crusoe Islands) on September 15, 1999, shows a unique pattern called a ''von Karman vortex street... More
John Day Fossil Beds: Image of the Day
Established as a national park in 1975, the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument includes more than 14,000 acres in Oregon. The park does not occupy a single, seamless piece of land, but is instead spread out... More
Nez Perce Reservation : Image of the Day
The Clearwater River cuts canyons in the hills and prairies of Northern Idaho as it winds through the 770,000 acres that make up the Nez Perce Reservation. Approximately 3,200 members of the Nimi'ipuu (Nez Perc... More
Wright Flyer NASA Image of The Day
On Dec. 17, 1903, the Wright Brothers made the first powered flight and, in March 1999, a full-scale replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer was mounted in NASA Ames Research Center's 40-foot by 80-foot wind tunnel fo... More
Destructive Earthquake near Bam, Iran: Image of the Day
A powerful earthquake struck southeastern Iran on December 26, 2003, killing thousands and destroying much of the city of Bam. The USGS National Earthquake information center is reporting a magnitude of 6.5 for... More
Nez Perce Reservation : Image of the Day
The Clearwater River cuts canyons in the hills and prairies of Northern Idaho as it winds through the 770,000 acres that make up the Nez Perce Reservation. Approximately 3,200 members of the Nimi'ipuu (Nez Perc... More
West Siberian Plain: Image of the Day
The West Siberian Plain is a vast flatland area in central Russia that stretches almost the full latitude of the country -- from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the foothills of the Altay Mountains in the sout... More
Great Sand Dunes National Park: Image of the Day
Mountains of shifting sand swirl around the feet of the rugged Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Southern Colorado. Rising over 750 feet, the dunes are the largest sand dunes in North America. On Monday, September ... More
Sierra Madre Oriental in Coahuila, Mexico: Image of the Day
This desolate landscape is part of the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range, on the border between the Coahuila and Nuevo Leon provinces of Mexico. This image was acquired by landsat7.usgs.gov/ Landsat 7's ... More
Colorado Rockies : Image of the Day
This enhanced true-color composite image shows a portion of the eastern face of Rocky Mountain National Park in northern Colorado. The scene was acquired on October 5, 1999, by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plu... More
Matang Mangrove Forest, Malaysia: Image of the Day
Mangrove forests are one of the Earth's most rapidly disappearing ecosystems. These coastal forests, with trees adapted to growing in salty soil and water, protect coastlines from erosion and are a natural barr... More
Just as the Amazon, the Mississippi, the Zambezi, the
Just as the Amazon, the Mississippi, the Zambezi, the Yangtze, and Earth's other mighty rivers drain the continents, rivers also drain Antarctica, only in this frozen landscape, the rivers are ice. Under their ... More
Cerro Aconcagua: Image of the Day
As the tallest mountain in South America, Cerro Aconcagua (or Aconcagua Mountain) is one of the Seven Summits: the highest peaks on each of the seven continents. Its name is believed by many to come from an an... More
X-38 NASA Image of The Day
One of NASA's three X-38 Crew Return Vehicle technology demonstrators that flew at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., a decade ago has found a new home in America's heartlan... More
Mouth of the Mississippi: Image of the Day
The Mississippi River drains the heart of the North American continent, carrying vast quantities of sediment and depositing it along the shore of Louisiana and into the Gulf of Mexico. The sediment is composed ... More