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Received — 16 July 2026 ⏭ NASA Science

Ontario Wildfire Smoke Moves East

✇NASA Science
By: Lauren Dauphin
16 July 2026 at 05:00
A satellite image shows brown smoke from wildfires in Ontario, Canada, streaming east across parts of Canada and the U.S. Areas of white clouds are mixed in with the smoke.
Smoke from wildland fires pours eastward over Canada and the U.S. in an image captured on the afternoon of July 14, 2026, by the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-21 satellite.
NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

After a slow start to Canada’s 2026 fire season, activity picked up by the end of June amid dry, warm conditions and returned closer to the 25-year average. By mid-July, almost 850 fires were actively burning across the country, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. More than 180 of those were burning in Ontario.

This NOAA-21 image, acquired on the afternoon of July 14, 2026, shows smoke billowing from the Ontario fires. Winds carried the smoke primarily southeast over much of the southern part of the province, as well as parts of Quebec and the U.S. Midwest and Northeast, tinting the sky shades of gray and yellow and the Sun orange in many areas.

The smoke’s impact on air quality varied, depending largely on altitude. In areas where smoke was high in the atmosphere, air quality impacts were negligible; where it drifted closer to the ground, conditions worsened. Air quality in Toronto, for instance, reached unhealthy levels, according to AirNow. People in the southern parts of the province were also grappling with a heat wave, compounding the health risks.

Much of the smoke came from fires in Northwestern Ontario, where eight blazes saw significant growth on July 13 and 14. The fires prompted officials to issue evacuation orders for several communities in this part of the province, according to news reports.

As of July 14, fires across Canada have burned 1.9 million hectares (4.7 million acres) since the start of the year—still well below the season totals from the extreme fire years of 2023 and 2025. How the rest of the season plays out remains to be seen. A seasonal fire outlook—compiled by wildland fire experts from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico—shows where fire conditions are more or less likely through July, August, and September.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE , GIBS/Worldview , and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). Story by Kathryn Hansen.

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A satellite image shows brown smoke from wildfires in Ontario, Canada, streaming east across parts of Canada and the U.S. Areas of white clouds are mixed in with the smoke.

July 14, 2026

JPEG (3.96 MB)

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The post Ontario Wildfire Smoke Moves East appeared first on NASA Science.

Received — 24 June 2026 ⏭ NASA Science

Playing the Moon Game 

✇NASA Science
By: Lauren Dauphin
24 June 2026 at 05:01
A satellite image shows part of Alaska’s Katmai National Park. A chain of snowy mountain peaks stretches from the bottom left corner to the right side of the image. The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes is a long, tan-colored feature runs toward the northwest in the upper-left.
September 29, 2025

In preparing to visit the Moon’s surface, soon-to-be lunar explorers in NASA’s Apollo program first ventured into a variety of unfamiliar landscapes on Earth. A couple of these trips, in the summers of 1965 and 1966, took astronauts to Alaska’s remote Katmai National Park for simulations of field geology in Moon-like environments.

In one exercise, which they called “playing the Moon game,” pairs of astronauts were placed at unfamiliar field sites and asked to pretend as if they were on the Moon. By the account of William Phinney, Apollo’s science training coordinator, they were tasked with collecting representative geologic samples and practicing how to communicate their observations to scientists.

A detailed satellite image centers on the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Alaska. The tan-colored feature runs southeast-to-northwest. Snowy peaks appear on the right side of the image, and green, forested valleys fill the left side.
September 29, 2025

The Alaskan setting for the Moon game was an unusual volcanic landscape called the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. The valley is full of debris deposited by the 1912 eruption of Novarupta—the largest volcanic event on Earth in the 20th century.

The images above, acquired on September 29, 2025, with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 9, show the massive ash flow deposited by Novarupta. The layer measures up to 660 feet (200 meters) thick and was emplaced at a searing 1,380 degrees Fahrenheit (750 degrees Celsius). 

The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, shown in the 1917 photo below, is so named because of the abundance of fumaroles—gas and steam-emitting vents—that filled the valley for a decade after the eruption. A few hundred persisted more than 10 years, with some lasting until the 1990s.

Three people stand in the foreground of this black-and-white photo, silhouetted by steam coming from a fumarole. A dark, barren landscape dotted with plumes of rising steam extends into the background.
1917

Scientists initially suspected that the monster eruption occurred at Mount Katmai, a neighboring volcano with a large caldera located 6 miles (10 kilometers) east of Novarupta’s dome. However, they later determined that the eruption actually occurred at Novarupta—whose name means “new eruption”—after stealing magma from beneath Katmai. As the magma chamber emptied, Katmai collapsed, forming the 2.5-mile-wide (4-kilometer-wide) caldera present today.

The volcanic landscape in the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes is far fresher than the ancient lava flows that formed the Moon’s volcanic features. But for the Apollo astronauts, it offered an “excellent opportunity to view volcanic materials and landforms in nearly pristine condition,” Phinney wrote. They studied evidence of fumaroles and examined vertical sections of the deposits where streams had eroded deep gorges.

This photo shows a broad valley filled with tan-colored volcanic material in the foreground and snowy mountains in the background. The ashy volcanic deposits create a mostly flat valley floor, except where steep-sided chasms formed by erosion run through it.
June 9, 1991

Researchers continue to visit this Alaskan wilderness in search of clues that could help decipher the geology of the Moon and Mars. In 2024, the Goddard Instrument Field Team (GIFT) trekked to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes to study its icy volcanic landscape. Like the valley, Mars contains glaciers and ice sheets layered with dust and ash, a dynamic and difficult-to-interpret environment.

Advancing lunar science, the GIFT team also collected samples from rock formations comparable to the Moon’s Gruithuisen Domes. These mysterious features are made of hardened lava with a different composition than the surrounding rock. With more to learn about our nearest celestial neighbor, the spirit of the Moon game lives on in the 21st century.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Photos from National Geographic Society Katmai expeditions photographs, Archives and Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage, and from the U.S. Geological Survey Volcano Hazards Program. Story by Lindsey Doermann. 

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A satellite image shows part of Alaska’s Katmai National Park. A chain of snowy mountain peaks stretches from the bottom left corner to the right side of the image. The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes is a long, tan-colored feature runs toward the northwest in the upper-left.

September 29, 2025

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The post Playing the Moon Game  appeared first on NASA Science.

Received — 18 June 2026 ⏭ NASA Science

El Niño Is Underway

✇NASA Science
By: Lauren Dauphin
18 June 2026 at 05:00
A global map centered on the Pacific Ocean shows a band of red, higher-than-normal water levels across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific and a broad patch off the coast of South America.
Higher-than-normal sea surfaces (red) are visible in the central and eastern Pacific on June 8, 2026, a few days before El Niño was declared. Data for the map were acquired by the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite and processed by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

El Niño, characterized by warmer-than-normal water temperatures in parts of the equatorial Pacific, made its return in June 2026. Observations of sea surface height from the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite that month indicated that the 2026 event was continuing to strengthen.  

The natural, recurring phenomenon can have widespread effects, typically bringing wetter conditions to the U.S. Southwest and drought to countries in the western Pacific, such as Indonesia and Australia. NOAA declared an El Niño on June 11, after sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific measured at least 0.5 degrees Celsius above average for several consecutive months.

Meanwhile, NASA scientists have been observing a complementary sign of El Niño: areas of elevated sea surface height. When ocean water warms, it expands in volume and causes the sea surface to rise—making the water’s height a reliable indicator of ocean temperatures. Warmer-than-normal temperatures, hence higher sea surface heights, in parts of the equatorial Pacific Ocean are associated with El Niño.

The map above depicts sea surface height anomalies across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean as observed on June 8, 2026. Shades of red indicate sea levels that were higher than average. Normal sea level conditions appear white, and lower areas are blue.  

Data for the map were acquired by the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite—launched in 2020 by NASA and led by ESA (European Space Agency)—and processed by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Note that signals related to seasonal cycles and long-term trends have been removed to highlight sea level anomalies associated with El Niño and other short-term natural phenomena.

Earlier in spring 2026, the satellite started to detect precursor signs of El Niño as swells of warm water hundreds of miles wide, known as Kelvin waves, moved from the western Pacific to the eastern Pacific. That happens when trade winds in the western equatorial Pacific weaken and then temporarily reverse to blow from the west. Warm water piles up in the east, deepening the warm surface layer, lowering the thermocline, and suppressing the upwelling that usually keeps waters along the Pacific coasts of the Americas cooler.

This buildup of heat beneath the water’s surface is what sea surface height observations capture. It goes beyond surface temperature measurements to indicate how much heat is stored in the subsurface. That’s important because a shallow warm layer might not have much impact on climate and weather, while a large reservoir of heat below the surface can matter more.

According to JPL sea level researcher Severine Fournier, deputy project scientist for Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, conditions in the western Pacific on June 8 looked similar to those from the same time in 1997, a year when an exceptionally strong El Niño emerged. Warm conditions in the eastern Pacific in 2026 have lagged behind, however, with fewer Kelvin waves built up by the same date.

Still, more warm Kelvin waves appeared to be approaching the eastern Pacific, meaning El Niño was still strengthening. Whether it catches up to 1997 depends on ocean activity in the coming weeks. “For now, it looks like it’s going to be a big one—more so than I would have said last week—but we still need more observations to know what’s going to happen.”

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2023) processed by the European Space Agency and further processed by Josh Willis, Severin Fournier, and Kevin Marlis/NASA/JPL-Caltech. Story by Kathryn Hansen.

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A global map centered on the Pacific Ocean shows a band of red, higher-than-normal water levels across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific and a broad patch off the coast of South America.

June 8, 2026

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Received — 16 June 2026 ⏭ NASA Science

Nebraska’s Wide, Rolling Domain

✇NASA Science
By: Lauren Dauphin
16 June 2026 at 05:01
The landscape in northwestern Nebraska has a rippled appearance, with tan parallel ridges running from left to right and green areas and small lakes filling the low-lying spaces in between.
The Nebraska Sandhills stretch across the north-central part of the state in this image acquired on August 19, 2025, with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8.
NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

Editor’s Note: Today’s story is the answer to the June Puzzler.

The undulating landscape of north-central Nebraska may be easy to overlook among the iconic dune fields of the world. Far from any coast or desert, the Nebraska Sandhills—comprising the Western Hemisphere’s largest system of sand dunes—bring their own brand of beauty and value. Grasslands blanket the rolling hills, providing grazing grounds for livestock, while lakes and wetlands dot the landscape, supporting diverse plant and animal life.

Much of the sand forming the hills originated in the Rocky Mountains. Rivers carried the eroded material down from the mountains and deposited it across the Great Plains during the Pleistocene. In times of drought, winds blowing predominantly from the north or south lofted sand out of dried riverbeds, gradually building and shaping dunes. About 3,500 years ago, grassland vegetation stabilized the features. Today, the rippled pattern spans about 20,000 square miles (52,000 square kilometers), about one-quarter of the state of Nebraska.

A series of tan parallel ridges runs from left to right, with green areas and small lakes filling the low-lying spaces in between.
Some of the largest, grassland-covered dunes in the Nebraska Sandhills are found in the northwestern part of the region, shown in this image acquired on August 19, 2025, with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8.
NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

Some of the largest dunes occur in and around the area shown in the detailed image above, near the northern edge of the Sandhills region. These transverse dunes stand as high as 400 feet (120 meters) and extend for several miles. Their northern slopes are gentler than their southern slopes, reflecting the dominant influence of northerly winds. In other areas, dunes are more symmetric, suggesting that winds blew with nearly equal strength from the north and south, alternating with the seasons.  

The grasslands that now cover the hills constitute pastureland for grazing livestock. Ranching expanded significantly in the area after passage of the Kinkaid Act in 1904, which allotted 640-acre parcels of land to ranchers who would settle it. Today, far more cattle than humans occupy the region, and half of Nebraska’s nearly 23 million acres of rangeland and pastureland are in the Sandhills. Some ranchers graze their cattle in patterns meant to approximate the large bison herds that once roamed the land.

Small, irregularly shaped lakes and marshy areas are interspersed among tan hills.
Lakes and wetlands fill the valleys between dunes in Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge, shown in this image acquired on August 19, 2025, with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8.
NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

Though much of the land in the Sandhills is privately owned, some is set aside in protected public lands. One of these areas, Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge on the southwestern edge of the Sandhills region, is shown above. Wetlands, including shallow lakes, marshes, and wet meadows, fill some of the valleys between the dunes. The land here is sponge-like, with precipitation seeping down through the soil and recharging groundwater instead of flowing off through stream channels.

Located along the Central Flyway, the refuge is a haven for migratory birds, and dozens of species of waterfowl, marsh birds, and shorebirds utilize the area. Among other wildlife, several types of turtles thrive in the ponds and prairies. Wetlands across the Sandhills support rare species such as the whooping crane, western prairie fringed orchid, and Topeka shiner.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

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The landscape in northwestern Nebraska has a rippled appearance, with tan parallel ridges running from left to right and green areas and small lakes filling the low-lying spaces in between.

August 19, 2025

JPEG (10.71 MB)

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The post Nebraska’s Wide, Rolling Domain appeared first on NASA Science.

Received — 15 June 2026 ⏭ NASA Science

Pumice Rafts Encroach on Admiralty Islands

✇NASA Science
By: Lauren Dauphin
15 June 2026 at 05:01
Bands of tan-colored pumice float on the Bismarck Sea near several islands and bright-blue shallow areas. The material lines the southern coast of the largest island.
June 4, 2026

On May 8, 2026, satellites detected signs of an unexpected submarine volcanic eruption in the Bismarck Sea near the islands of Papua New Guinea. Over the next several weeks, plumes of steam and ash streamed over the sea, and areas of discolored water surrounded the eruption site. Relatively little is known about the ocean floor in this area or the volcanic feature that is presently erupting. But experts think the new activity, ongoing as of mid-June, might be occurring along the Titan Ridge and has the potential to form an ephemeral new island.

Despite the unknowns, the effects of the eruption became unmistakable for some communities in Papua New Guinea’s Admiralty Islands. In early June, rafts of pumice drifted northwest from the eruption site and clogged up coastlines on several of the islands. Bands of the buoyant volcanic material are visible in this image, acquired with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 on June 4, as they drifted with surface currents on the Bismarck Sea.  

Several days after the image, news outlets reported acute impacts from thick masses of pumice reaching coastal areas. Communities on Lou Island and Baluan Island, to the south, were described by officials as among the worst affected, according to reports from local media. Outlets reported that a layer of pumice up to several meters thick blanketed the shore, cutting off access to the water. The volcanic fragments similarly choked the coast and key waterways around the much larger Manus Island, about 125 kilometers (80 miles) northwest of the volcano and out of frame.

A bright-white volcanic plume and an area of greenish water extend to the northwest from an underwater eruption.
A submarine volcano produces a plume of discolored water and vents steam into the air in an image acquired on June 4, 2026, with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8. Pumice is visible near the base of the plume and exhibits a thermal signature in infrared imagery.
NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

Studies of past pumice raft events have found that the material can remain afloat for months to years before sinking out of satellite view. Larger rafts can form with the help of ash, which serves to “weld” together fragments of the porous rock, said Jim Garvin, the chief scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, noting this process occurred during the 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai. “These masses can pile up around erupting vents to protect the eruption centers and produce ephemeral new lands in some cases,” he said. When adrift, such pumice platforms can act as floating homes for marine organisms—from microalgae to bryozoans to barnacles—and enable them to disperse over long distances.

Though beneficial to life in some ways, the rafts can pose serious threats to humans and other species. Some of the larger fragments of pumice stack up to form ridges when they reach the coastlines of islands. Reports from Papua New Guinea highlight the disruptions to fishing, the transport of goods, and access to critical services that can occur when pumice accumulates along the coast.

Communities have expressed concerns over the pumice’s effects on marine ecosystems, as well. Researchers have noted that the sustained presence of pumice can block sunlight and may inhibit photosynthesis in seagrass and corals below, and the rocks may physically damage reef structures. In a review of the ecological effects of pumice reaching Japan’s coast in 2021, researchers noted the die-off of filter-feeding fish in fishery cages from ingesting pumice, warning that other wildlife may be harmed by mistakenly consuming the rocks.

New studies using an ensemble of orbital remote sensing platforms—including Landsat, hyperspectral instruments, and imaging radars—are tracking developments in this Bismarck Sea region, Garvin said. These observations can provide new perspectives on hazards as well as unique scientific opportunities for improved understanding of submarine eruptions.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

Downloads

Bands of tan-colored pumice float on the Bismarck Sea near several islands and bright-blue shallow areas. The material lines the southern coast of the largest island. A bright-white volcanic plume and an area of greenish water extend to the northwest from an underwater eruption.

June 4, 2026

JPEG (7.36 MB)

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The post Pumice Rafts Encroach on Admiralty Islands appeared first on NASA Science.

Received — 12 June 2026 ⏭ NASA Science

World Cup Fever in Guadalajara

✇NASA Science
By: Lauren Dauphin
12 June 2026 at 05:01
April 13, 1986
April 27, 2026
: Images of Guadalajara in 1986 (left) and 2026 (right) shows the city expanding westward into an area that had been mostly farmland. Guadalajara Stadium appears as a small circular feature on the left side of the 2026 image.
A pair of Landsat images shows 40 years of westward urban expansion from Guadalajara, Mexico. The Thematic Mapper on Landsat 5 captured the left image in 1986; the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 captured the right image in 2026.
Images of Guadalajara in 1986 (left) and 2026 (right) shows the city expanding westward into an area that had been mostly farmland. Guadalajara Stadium appears as a small circular feature on the left side of the 2026 image.
A pair of Landsat images shows 40 years of westward urban expansion from Guadalajara, Mexico. The Thematic Mapper on Landsat 5 captured the left image in 1986; the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 captured the right image in 2026.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
: Images of Guadalajara in 1986 (left) and 2026 (right) shows the city expanding westward into an area that had been mostly farmland. Guadalajara Stadium appears as a small circular feature on the left side of the 2026 image.
A pair of Landsat images shows 40 years of westward urban expansion from Guadalajara, Mexico. The Thematic Mapper on Landsat 5 captured the left image in 1986; the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 captured the right image in 2026.
Images of Guadalajara in 1986 (left) and 2026 (right) shows the city expanding westward into an area that had been mostly farmland. Guadalajara Stadium appears as a small circular feature on the left side of the 2026 image.
A pair of Landsat images shows 40 years of westward urban expansion from Guadalajara, Mexico. The Thematic Mapper on Landsat 5 captured the left image in 1986; the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 captured the right image in 2026.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
April 13, 1986
April 27, 2026

April 13, 1986 – April 27, 2026

A pair of Landsat images shows 40 years of westward urban expansion from Guadalajara, Mexico. The TM (Thematic Mapper) on Landsat 5 captured the left image in 1986; the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 captured the right image in 2026.

Guadalajara, Mexico, was quite a different place when it last hosted World Cup games 40 years ago. The city welcomed matches in June 1986 and did so again in 2026, when South Korea faced Czechia at Guadalajara Stadium in the opening round of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

In 1986, Guadalajara Stadium had not yet been built in Zapopan, the fast-growing municipality just northwest of Guadalajara. Many of that year’s World Cup matches were held instead at Jalisco Stadium in northeastern Guadalajara. It was in that stadium that France defeated Brazil in a penalty shootout in the 1986 quarterfinals, in what is widely regarded as one of the most memorable World Cup games of all time.

As seen in the Landsat images above, the land where Guadalajara Stadium (also called Estadio Akron) now sits was farmland in 1986. The new stadium, built in 2010 to host Mexico’s Club Deportivo Guadalajara, or Chivas, lies near the Sierra la Primavera volcanic complex, a rugged landscape full of lava flows, volcanic domes, steam vents, and hot springs. The architects who designed the stadium took inspiration from the nearby volcanic terrain, creating a structure that rises from a grassy earthen berm meant to resemble the flanks of a volcano, topped with a white roof reminiscent of a volcanic cloud.   

About 95,000 years ago, the volcanic system underneath Sierra la Primavera produced a massive eruption that caused a caldera 11 kilometers (7 miles) in diameter to slump downward. Water filled the depression for tens of thousands of years, but tectonic uplift and the accumulation of sediment eventually led to the demise of the lake. Erosion wore away the softer surrounding rock over time, leaving harder, erosion-resistant volcanic rocks within the circular feature that now stand high above the surrounding terrain.

Starting about 60,000 years ago, several lava domes erupted along the southern edge of the caldera. The youngest of them, Cerro del Colli, formed about 30,000 years ago, leaving the dome-shaped feature just south of the stadium and contributing to a broader landscape dotted with other volcanic domes and cinder cones.

Today, much of the original caldera has been preserved as a forested area known as La Primavera Biosphere Reserve, even as development has partially encircled it during the past 40 years. The population of the Guadalajara metro area has grown from about 2.7 million in 1986 to more than 5.5 million now, with particularly rapid growth in Zapopan, a burgeoning tech hub sometimes billed as “Mexico’s Silicon Valley.” A prominent development visible in Landsat images is Guadalajara Technology Park, one of several new industrial parks in Zapopan. New greenhouses have also come to the area en masse, including south of the reserve, where they are mostly used to grow fruits and vegetables.

World Cup fever runs particularly high in Guadalajara, which is hosting World Cup matches for the third time. During Brazil’s legendary title run in 1970, when Pelé led the team, Jalisco Stadium was the venue for Brazil’s first-round, quarterfinal, and semifinal matches. To commemorate him, the city in May 2026 erected a 9.5-meter (31-foot) bronze statue of the iconic football (soccer) player.

Even the animals at Guadalajara Zoo are taking part in the festivities, with elephants, gorillas, giraffes, capybaras, pumas, and macaws “predicting” match winners by choosing between food, shirts, boxes, soccer balls, and other items. A puma named Muluk predicted South Korea would beat Czechia by sniffing and moving a ball, one newspaper reported.

Guadalajara will host four first-round matches: South Korea vs. Czechia on June 12, Mexico vs. South Korea on June 18, Colombia vs. Democratic Republic of the Congo on June 23, and Uruguay vs. Spain on June 26.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.

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Images of Guadalajara in 1986 (left) and 2026 (right) shows the city expanding westward into an area that had been mostly farmland. Guadalajara Stadium appears as a small circular feature on the left side of the 2026 image.

April 13, 1986

JPEG (13.09 MB)

Images of Guadalajara in 1986 (left) and 2026 (right) shows the city expanding westward into an area that had been mostly farmland. Guadalajara Stadium appears as a small circular feature on the left side of the 2026 image.

April 27, 2026

JPEG (13.71 MB)

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The post World Cup Fever in Guadalajara appeared first on NASA Science.

Received — 9 June 2026 ⏭ NASA Science

San Francisco’s Metropolitan Mosaic

✇NASA Science
By: Lauren Dauphin
9 June 2026 at 05:00
A top-down photo of San Francisco shows dense gray urban infrastructure interspersed with green parks. Waves and ships are visible in the surrounding blue-green water.
May 27, 2026

A period of unsettled weather brought scattered showers and thunderstorms to California’s Bay Area on May 27, 2026. That afternoon, a break in the clouds left downtown San Francisco and nearby communities beneath mostly cloud-free skies, allowing an astronaut aboard the International Space Station to take this photograph.

The image captures two of the region’s iconic bridges. The Golden Gate Bridge connects the northern San Francisco Peninsula with Marin County to the north, while the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge spans the bay toward Oakland to the east.  

Near the center of the image, Golden Gate Park stands out as a long, rectangular strip of green amid the dense urban landscape. Spanning more than 1,000 acres (400 hectares), the park encompasses meadows, gardens, wooded areas, and lakes. Additional green space toward the north around the Golden Gate Bridge is part of a national recreation area. 

The nadir (downward-looking) perspective also provides a clear view of the patchwork of street grids, which were laid out over San Francisco’s hilly terrain as the city grew in successive stages. In the heart of the downtown area, Market Street runs southwest to northeast and serves as a prominent divider between two distinct grid orientations: one aligned with the bay and the other aligned with the street.  

Along the northeastern and eastern waterfront, various structures extend into the bay. Toward the north, these include a historic wharf, seawalls, and piers—most built in the early 1900s, though some date back into the 1800s. The adjacent waters support heavy maritime traffic, including cargo and container ships, cruise vessels, and regional ferries.

Breaking waves are visible along the western coast, including at Ocean Beach, the 3.5-mile stretch of sandy shore adjacent to Golden Gate Park. On May 27, the National Weather Service warned of hazardous conditions at the region’s beaches due to strong northerly winds. Long-period swells from the northwest contributed to the increased risk of rip currents as well as sneaker waves in the days after this image was acquired.

Astronaut photograph ISS074-E-619284 was acquired on May 27, 2026, with a Nikon Z9 digital camera using a focal length of 800 millimeters. It is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 74 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Story by Kathryn Hansen.

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A top-down photo of San Francisco shows dense gray urban infrastructure interspersed with green parks. Waves and ships are visible in the surrounding blue-green water.

May 27, 2026

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Received — 8 June 2026 ⏭ NASA Science

Digging Back in Time in the UAE

✇NASA Science
By: Lauren Dauphin
8 June 2026 at 05:01
Limestone ridges appear as linear features running north–south with orange-toned desert to the west and a darker-toned mountain range to the east.
Jabal al Fāyah rises from the Rub’ al Khali desert in an image captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 on October 23, 2025.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin

About an hour’s drive east of Dubai’s gleaming towers and artificial islands, a quieter, more natural landscape takes shape. At the far northern edge of the Rub’ al Khali, a saffron-colored sand sea laps against the Al-Hajar Mountains. A series of pale ridges rises finlike from the desert plain, with the largest—Jabal al Fāyah—standing 412 meters (1,352 feet) above sea level.  

The Landsat 8 satellite captured this image of the ridges cutting across the Emirate of Sharjah in the northern part of the United Arab Emirates on October 23, 2025. To geologists, the limestone ridges are a reminder of the region’s watery past, signs that this land lay underwater tens of millions of years ago when the sedimentary rock layers were deposited.

Jabal al Fāyah functions as a barrier, trapping windblown sand in dune fields to its west. The weathering of iron-bearing minerals in the sand grains gives the dune fields their orange hue. To the east, the branching channels of overlapping alluvial fans extending from the Al-Hajar Mountains carry gravels and eroded sediments from basalts and other dark mafic rocks. 

The dark rocks to the east—part of the Samail Ophiolite—are known to geologists for being among the world’s largest, best-preserved, and most accessible exposures of ancient oceanic lithosphere, the rigid outer layer of Earth that includes both the crust and upper mantle. Oceanic lithosphere like this is normally subducted and recycled back into the mantle when tectonic plates collide. But in this area, a large section from beneath the Tethys Sea was scraped off and thrust onto the Arabian plate in a process called obduction.  

Development associated with Dubai appears as a light gray zone along the coast of the Persian Gulf with the dark gray Al-Hajar Mountains on the far right side of the image. A ridge lies in the middle of the image in a sandy area.
Dubai lies to the west of the limestone ridges, and the Al-Hajar Mountains lie to the east, in an image acquired by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 on October 23, 2025.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin

The Jabal al Fāyah ridges themselves are made up of marine limestone that was deposited on top of the ophiolite over tens of millions of years spanning the late Cretaceous through the early to mid-Paleocene. Limestone typically forms along continental margins in warm, shallow oceans, often in lagoons and coral reefs, out of the calcium carbonate found in the shells and skeletons of marine life. In many parts of the ridges, coral fragments and marine invertebrate fossils are visible embedded in the rock. A feature called Fossil Rock sits a few kilometers north of Jabal al Fāyah and adjacent to the limestone ridge Jabal Mulayḩah. It contains an abundance of snail, clam, and sea urchin remains. 

For archaeologists, the ridges are at the center of a much more recent tale of human adaptation and survival that has played out in just the past few hundred thousand years. The ridges and parts of the surrounding landscape—inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2025—are dotted with dozens of archaeological sites that trace human occupation on the Arabian Peninsula back to between 210,000 and 120,000 years ago, to the Middle Paleolithic. That was a period when waves of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) migrated out of Africa and shared the planet with other groups such as Neanderthals.   

Many of the sites contain stone flakes, blades, scrapers, hand axes, and other stone tools. The archaeological treasure trove offers early evidence of modern humans surviving in a harsh desert environment and raises questions about the routes modern Homo sapiens may have taken on their journey out of Africa.  

Geological evidence indicates that lakes periodically formed on the east side of the ridge, providing critical food and water resources that would have supported early inhabitants in this unforgiving climate. Rocky overhangs along the ridge would have provided shelter from the heat and wind. Some of the sites show evidence of intermittent occupation beginning as early as 210,000 years ago, making this one of the earliest signs of human habitation on the Arabian Peninsula.   

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.

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Development associated with Dubai appears as a light gray zone along the coast of the Persian Gulf with the dark gray Al-Hajar Mountains on the far right side of the image. A ridge lies in the middle of the image in a sandy area.

October 23, 2025

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