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.  

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.

References & Resources

• Armitage, S., et al. (2011) The Southern Route “Out of Africa”: Evidence for an Early Expansion of Modern Humans into Arabia. Science, 331(6016), 453-456.
• Bretzke, K., et al. (2025) Archaeology, chronology, and sedimentological context of the youngest Middle Palaeolithic assemblage from Jebel Faya, United Arab Emirates. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 17(60). 
• Bretzke, K., et al. (2022) Multiple phases of human occupation in Southeast Arabia between 210,000 and 120,000 years ago. Scientific Reports, 12, 1600. 
• Bretzke, K., et al. (2013) The environmental context of Paleolithic settlement at Jebel Faya, Emirate Sharjah, UAE. Quaternary International, 300, 83-93. 
• Condé Nast Traveller (2025, July 15) This new UNESCO World Heritage site in the UAE preserves the Middle East’s earliest evidence of modern humans. Accessed June 4, 2026. 
• Kamran, K., via Substack (2025, February 18) The Stone Blades of Jebel Faya: Rewriting the Story of Early Humans in Arabia. Accessed June 4, 2026. 
• Phys.org (2022, February 1) Early human settlement on the Arabian Peninsula less influenced by climate than previously thought. Accessed June 4, 2026. 
• Smithsonian (2025) What does it mean to be human? Accessed June 4, 2026. 
• UNESCO (2025) Faya Palaeolandscape. Accessed June 4, 2026.  
• Visit Sharjah (2025) Fossil Rock. Accessed June 4, 2026. 

The post Digging Back in Time in the UAE appeared first on NASA Science.

In May and June of most years, NASA satellites typically begin to detect large numbers of wildland fires throughout the Top End and Arnhem Land regions of Australia’s Northern Territory. On some days, especially in the afternoon, the blazes can resemble sizable wildfires in satellite imagery, spreading widely and producing expansive smoke plumes.

That was the case when NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image of smoke and fires on the afternoon of May 28, 2026. Often, however, fires burning in this area look smaller and less imposing. In the mornings just a few days earlier and later, for instance, NASA satellites detected little smoke despite observing many thermal anomalies, or hotspots, that indicated fire activity.

The pattern of burning, location, and timing are consistent with prescribed fires lit intentionally to manage the landscape. Land managers tend to light fires in the morning, and smoke builds over the course of the day. The process sometimes creates sizable plumes when there are updrafts and winds of moderate strength that carry smoke away from the fires, as happened on May 28 and again on June 2. The fires typically burn through the fire-adapted grasses, underbrush, and scattered trees in the region’s tropical savanna ecosystems.

Over the past few decades, the region’s land managers have combined deep-rooted Indigenous land management practices and modern technologies to establish large-scale landscape management programs such as the West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement project and Arnhem Land Fire Abatement. The goal of such efforts is to intentionally burn some of the savanna underbrush to create firebreaks and reduce fuel loads early in the dry season, reducing more destructive and emissions-intensive fires later in the season. The dry season generally begins in May and extends through September, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.

While research is ongoing, there are signs that the prescribed burning efforts are having the intended effect. Analysis of satellite observations of the fires suggests that prescribed burning efforts have shifted fire activity from late to early in the dry season, leading to a reduction in high-intensity fires and emissions.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Story by Adam Voiland.

References & Resources

• Ansell, J., et al. (2020) Contemporary Aboriginal savanna burning projects in Arnhem Land: a regional description and analysis of the fire management aspirations of Traditional Owners. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 29(5), 371–385.
• Arnhem Land Fire Abatement (2026) Our Projects. Accessed June 4, 2026.
• Carbon Market Institute (2026) West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement (WALFA) Project. Accessed June 4, 2026.
• Edwards, A., et al. (2021) Transforming fire management in northern Australia through successful implementation of savanna burning emissions reductions projects. Journal of Environmental Management, 290, 112568.
• Evans, J. & Russell-Smith, J. (2020) Delivering effective savanna fire management for defined biodiversity conservation outcomes: an Arnhem Land case study. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 29(5), 386-400.
• NASA Earthdata, Questions About Real-Time (RT) and Ultra Real-Time (URT) Active Fire Data. Accessed June 4, 2026.
• NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (2026, May 28) Fires/Hotspots. Accessed June 4, 2026.
• Russell-Smith, J., et al. (2026) Incentivising savanna fire management for emissions reduction, biodiversity conservation and community livelihood outcomes. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 35(4), 26039.

One of the first images transmitted back to Earth from the Artemis II mission was a stunner. In a single image, Earth’s full disk appears amid celestial phenomena that illustrate its place in the solar system. And although the visible hemisphere appears to be awash in sunlight, it is actually lit by moonlight. The astronauts’ vantage point provided a rare opportunity to capture nighttime features—most notably lights from human habitation—from a new perspective.

An Artemis crew member captured the photo from the Orion spacecraft after it completed the translunar injection burn, which sent the spacecraft out of Earth orbit and on a trajectory toward the Moon. In the photo, Earth eclipses the Sun from Orion’s perspective, leaving only a small sliver of its bright light visible around the bottom right edge. Green auroras, caused by charged particles from the Sun interacting with Earth’s upper atmosphere, glow around the north and south poles (lower left and upper right, respectively).

The Sun’s light also produces the fuzzy glow, known as zodiacal light, that appears to the lower right of Earth. This phenomenon comes from sunlight reflecting off interplanetary dust. Skywatchers on Earth may see it at certain times of year around dawn or dusk as a faint column of light extending up from the horizon. Data collected by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on its journey to Jupiter suggest that Mars may be a significant source of the dust particles that produce zodiacal light. Earth’s other planetary neighbor, Venus, appears as the bright object in the bottom right of the image.

On Earth itself, city lights are evidence of human activity. Bright areas appear in Spain, Portugal, and northern Africa (lower left), sub-Saharan Africa (center left), and Brazil (center right). Digital camera technology—with help from the illumination of a full Moon—made it possible to see these and other details of Earth’s surface and atmosphere in low light. The crew set the camera’s ISO to 51,200 to make it highly sensitive to light. For comparison, an ISO setting of 100 or 200 is common for daytime photography.

Previous nighttime views of Earth taken from spacecraft may look very different from this photo but have also inspired and enlightened. For instance, the Apollo 12 crew photographed Earth eclipsing the Sun in 1969; astronaut Alan Bean would go on to depict his impressions of the event in paintings.

More recently, astronauts aboard the International Space Station have photographed the planet at night from low Earth orbit, while NASA’s Black Marble nighttime lights product suite uses satellite observations to produce science-quality records of nighttime lights at daily, monthly, and yearly time scales. Those programs provide sustained data records, while the Artemis II photo is distinctive as a single human-captured full-disk view showing many low-light features at once.

Cindy Evans, senior exploration scientist in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, was working in the Science Evaluation Room during the Artemis II mission and was one of the first people on Earth to see the image. Evans was struck both by its beauty and the perspective revealed by all the visible solar system features. “I love the image so much because it was taken with Earth in moonshine, and shows Earth as a solar system body, a dynamic planet interacting with the solar wind, and a place harboring life,” she said.

The image is scientifically valuable, as well, said Miguel Román, Deputy Director for Atmospheres and Data Systems at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “It speaks powerfully to the breadth of what NASA does across science and human exploration,” he said. Román studies artificial light at night, as viewed from space, as a measurable signal of human activity.

“[This photo] reminds us that Earth at night is visually compelling, physically complex, and scientifically underexplored,” Román said. “I see this image as a glimpse of what Earth science can become in the future.”

NASA images prepared for Earth Observatory by Lauren Dauphin. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

References & Resources

• NASA (2026, April 22) Advancing Earth Observation at NASA Since Release of Earthrise Photo. Accessed June 2, 2026.
• NASA (2026, April 3) Hello, World. Accessed June 2, 2026.
• NASA (2006, October 9) Astronaut Still Photography During Apollo. Accessed June 2, 2026.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2026, May 15) Picturing Earth in a New Light. Accessed June 2, 2026.
• NASA Image and Video Library (2026, April 3) Earth From the Perspective of Artemis II. Accessed June 2, 2026.

Typhoon Jangmi dazzled from space with a giant swirling eye while drenching parts of Japan with heavy rain. From late May into early June 2026, Typhoon Jangmi slowly tracked north-northwest across the Philippine Sea on a path toward southern Japan. Although the storm moved at a relatively slow pace, it spread intense rainfall across a [...]

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