New Zealand's South Island

SeaWiFS captures the South Island of New Zealand in this image from 26 June. Click on image above for larger view.

26 June 2000

Viva Italia!

19 June 2000

Black Sea is Blooming!

This image taken by SeaWiFS on June 13 shows the color difference between the Black Sea (top) and the Mediterranean (bottom).  The Black Sea is blooming with phytoplankton.

13 June 2000

First Hurricane of the 2000 Season

Tropical Storm Aletta developed into the first hurricane of the 2000 eastern Pacific season.  This image was captured by SeaWiFS.

May 2000

First GOES-11 Image

The nation's newest weather satellite, GOES-11, has sent back its first image from space (Details)

18 May 2000

Earth View by Triana (or so it will look like...)

This image is a depiction of what type of visuals we
might get from Triana once it is launched in 2001. 

Triana homepage

2000 April

Central American Fires Viewed by Two
Goddard Spacecraft

24 April 2000

Great Lakes Look Great!!

SeaWiFS home page

April 2000

Terra Spacecraft Open for Business

After a picture-perfect launch into space last December, NASA's premier Earth Observing System Satellite, Terra, has completed on-orbit checkout and verification and is "open for business."

Terra, an international mission and part of NASA's Earth Sciences Enterprise, is opening a new window to the Earth and is providing daily information on the health of the planet. First images from the five instruments aboard Terra are being presented during a press briefing today at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.

HQ Press Release H00-62

Gallery of images

Terra homepage

19 April 2000

Blue Marble 2000

For downloadable images of Blue Marble 2000, go to: http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/bluemarble/index.html

17 April 2000

Landsat-7 Spectacular Views

Just in time for Earth Awareness 2000, here are Landsat 7's latest spectacular views of the Chesapeake Bay area and the Outer Banks.  Click on the links below for more Landsat 7 images of Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.   (These large files may take a while to load) Click on the images below for larger views of the areas.

17 April 2000

Arctic Ozone Levels Significantly Low

During the preceding winter Arctic ozone levels reached their lowest point in eight years at an altitude of nearly 60,000 feet. Concentrations dropped more than 50 percent from their average. But measurements taken during the largest international campaign ever mustered to study the Arctic stratosphere are yielding better insights into the processes that control polar ozone. Called SOLVE (Stratospheric Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment), it included researchers from Europe, Russia, Canada, and the United States working together to develop better tools for predicting the state of polar ozone levels. These predictive tools will become more and more important in light of expected chlorine level declines due to the Montreal Protocol and what will likely be increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the coming decades.

For more on this story, go to:  http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftp/pub/PAO/Releases/2000/00-39.htm

or http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagewall/solve.html

05 April 2000

Central America from Space

This is the March 29th SeaWiFS view of the smoke coming from Central America. In this oblique westward-looking view, Honduras and Nicaragua are in the foreground and El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico are in the background.  Click on pic for larger image.

SeaWiFS home page

29 March 2000

SeaWiFS captured this magnificent view of Spain, Portugal and the Gilbratar straits on March 19, 2000.

SeaWiFS home page

19 March 2000

Terra First Light Images

This image (left) of the Mississippi Delta was acquired on February 24, 2000 and is one of the first scenes acquired by the Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the EOS-Terra Spacecraft. The scene was made by combining three of the visible bands of the MODIS Land Surface Reflectance product.

This image is color composite covering the Rift Valley, in land area of Ethiopia. The color difference of this image reflects the distribution of different rocks with the different amount of silicon dioxide. It is inferred that the area with whitish color is covered with basalt, and the area with pinkish color with andesite in center. This is the first image in history for spaceborne TIR multi-band image enabling to distinguish between rocks with same compositions.

Terra First Images Gallery website

10 March 2000

Floods Ravage Mozambique

This photo taken by Landsat in August 22, 1999 shows the region prior to the flooding.

This image taken by Landsat in March 1, 2000 shows the devastation.

Landsat homepage

March 2000

On Feb. 23 a long plume is seen extending from San Cristobal, Nicaragua some 100 km over the Pacific Ocean. This is the strongest ash eruption at San Cristobal since the present low level activity began in 1997.

SeaWiFS home page

23 February 2000

Hotlanta It Is!

For more information, go to:  http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagewall/AAAS/

March 2000

The Worst Is Over?

As of noon Feb. 22, the snow cover along the U.S. east coast had retreated well north of the Washington-Baltimore area
as seen in this SeaWiFS image.

SeaWiFS home page

22 February 2000

Far and Away in Southern Africa

SeaWiFS captured this photo of Southern Africa on Friday, Feb. 11

11 February 2000

Storms packing winds of 90 mph hit Denmark last weekend (Jan. 29-30), causing widespread flooding and damage.  The aftermath of that storm is evident in this image taken by SeaWiFS which shows marked murkiness around the country caused by the storm stirring up the waters.

SeaWiFS home page

07 February 2000

Australia and Tasmania--And the Earth really is round!!

Spectacular views of "down under" from SeaWiFS up above.

SeaWiFS home page

01 February 2000

East Coast of U.S. Gets Blasted in January by Old Man Winter

January 20, 2000

January 25, 2000

Snowcover over the Eastern U.S. after the Jan. 25, 2000 snowstorm.

These pictures were all captured by the SeaWiFS spacecraft during its normal passes over the East Coast of the U.S.

SeaWiFS home page

31 January 2000

New Zealand is Stunning!

SeaWiFS captured this photograph of  the north island of New Zealand last March.  The uninhabited 2 x 2.4 km White Island (just barely visible to the right of the middle of the north island) is the emergent summit of a 16 x 18 km submarine volcano. The white smoke plume emanating from it is barely visible.  Intermittent steam and ash eruptions have occurred throughout the short historical period, but its activity also forms a prominent part of Maori legends.

Balmy Bahamas

The Bahamas look mighty  inviting to those in colder climates.  This photo taken from SeaWiFS shows the islands in all their balmy glory.

SeaWiFS home page

12 January 2000

Tasmania in Clear View

There looks to be some sort of aerosol over Bass Strait in this relatively clear SeaWiFS view of Tasmania. The phytoplankton coloring the waters south and west of the island highlight the turbulent nature of this part of the ocean.

SeaWiFS home page

10 January 2000

Delmarva Area Looks Marvelous!

Fair skies ahead for the Chesapeake and Delaware Bay area.  This photo was taken by SeaWiFS on January 6, 2000.

SeaWiFS home page

06 January 2000

Haze Over China

This view of Eastern Asia was taken on January 2, 2000 showing the thick layer of haze over southern People's Republic of China, including the cities of Chengdu, Congqing, Wuhan, and the archaeologically important city of Xi'an. Researchers are unclear as to the source of the haze, but it is thick enough to obscure most of the natural colors reflected from the ground beneath. For more about SeaWiFS

On January 2, 2000, the thick layer of haze over China was also detected by the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instrument onboard the Earth Probe Satellite. While best known for mapping total column ozone on a daily basis, TOMS can also detect and track aerosols located in the troposphere.

The haze is denoted by the TOMS aerosol index. For a given scene, the aerosol index is proportional to the amount of light absorbed before it reaches the ground. Light blue (0.2) indicates smaller amounts of aerosol and dark red (1.6) indicates a greater amount of aerosol (dust or smoke).  For reflectivity (grayscale), the lighter tones means that more light is reflected back to space by the clouds. Click on pic to enlarge image for detail.

For more information on TOMS instruments, go to the TOMS home page at http://toms.gsfc.nasa.gov

05 January 2000

Snow in New England 1998/1999/2000

These images, taken by SeaWiFS show the difference in the amount of snow cover in December 1998, January 1999 and January 2000.  What a difference a year makes.

05 January 2000