In May 2016, 17 CubeSats were released by the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer on the International Space Station. The Dove satellites are part of a constellation designed, built and operated by Planet Labs to take Earth images for humanitarian and environmental applications ranging from monitoring deforestation and urbanization to improving natural-disaster relief and agricultural yields in developing nations.
In late April and early May 2016, satellite sensors detected signs of a volcanic eruption in the far South Atlantic Ocean between South America and Antarctica. Mount Sourabaya, a stratovolcano on Bristol Island, appeared to be erupting for the first time in 60 years.
Operation IceBridge, NASA's airborne survey of polar ice, recently returned from the Umanaq B mission along Greenland's western coast, marking its eighth spring campaign of science flights over Arctic sea and land.
A graphic built from three different images collected by the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1A radar shows sea-ice change along northeast Greenland's coast.
A colorful image of central western Namibia, taken on Jan. 28, 2016, by the European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-2A satellite, details the world's oldest desert: the Namib. Also present is the Namib Naukluft National Park, the largest game park in Africa and the fourth largest in the world.
European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-1A satellite data were used to create a multi-temporal color composite of land coverage across Ireland. With a coastline of 7,500 kilometers, Ireland is home to 4.8 million people.
Expedition 47 Commander Tim Kopra of NASA captured this night image of Chicago on April 5, 2016, from the International Space Station. Expedition 47 began March 1, 2016, and ends June 5, 2016, with no spacewalks currently planned.
The first image from the European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-3A Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) depicts thermal signatures over a part of western Namibia and the South Atlantic Ocean.
NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) field campaign is gathering data that will help scientists understand how the oceans are joining with the atmosphere to melt the vast ice sheet as well as predict the extent and timing of the resulting sea-level rise.
The European Alps stretch 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) across eight countries, and it's the longest mountain chain situated entirely within Europe. The Alps include more than 100 peaks higher than 4,000 meters (13,000 feet), and this image from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on its Terra satellite beautifully captures a recent snowfall across the region.
