Earth
Your home. Our mission.
NASA explores Earth as one dynamic, connected system. Pioneering science, groundbreaking missions, and new technologies reveal our home planet as never before. The trusted science and open data that result empower communities, public agencies, and industries to prepare for hazards, manage vital resources, and plan for the future. What NASA learns about Earth also propels exploration beyond our planet.
Why NASA Earth Science
NASA sets the standard for discovering how our planet works.
NASA brings scientists and engineers together to build pioneering missions that reveal what we couldn’t see before, from changes in water supplies to atmospheric conditions that affect aviation and public safety. These observations help explain how Earth’s oceans, land, ice, atmosphere, and life affect one another.
Other agencies and businesses put NASA’s discoveries and technologies to work in everyday services. NASA also makes its data available to everyone, giving researchers and industries ranging from farming to insurance a trusted foundation for decisions that affect our economy, security, and natural resources.
From Earth to Exploration
Understanding other planets starts with understanding our own.
We chart frontiers on Earth and carry what we learn to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. NASA’s studies of Earth’s terrain, dust, water, and extreme temperatures help scientists understand conditions on the Moon and Mars. Technologies developed to observe our planet also help us explore those worlds.
Understanding how Earth sustains life helps us prepare for people to live and work beyond it. NASA’s knowledge of weather and atmospheric conditions also helps mission teams launch astronauts safely and bring them home.
Science That Serves Earth
NASA Earth science works for every American.
NASA’s trusted, openly available observations, models, and tools support farmers and ranchers, businesses, pilots, emergency responders, federal, state, and local agencies, and more. They help protect critical infrastructure, manage water and energy resources, support food production, reduce risk, and plan with confidence.
When wildfires, severe storms, air pollution, drought, and other hazards threaten lives and property, NASA Earth science helps partners prepare, respond, and recover.
What We Study
Earth’s oceans, land, ice, atmosphere, and life continually shape one another. Explore some of the major systems, processes, and challenges that NASA studies from space, in the air, and on the ground.
NASA's View of Home
From NASA’s first image of Earth in 1959 to today’s detailed views of land, oceans, ice, and atmosphere, see how observing our planet from space has transformed what we know and expanded what is possible.
From Earthrise to TodayFrom Space to Decisions
How much water are crops using? Where has a storm caused damage? NASA Earth observations help answer questions that shape decisions on the ground.
Explore the NASA Earth Science Applications Guidebook
Featured Missions
Explore three missions revealing our planet in remarkable new detail, from microscopic ocean life to vast landscapes and water in motion around the globe.
NISAR
With one of the most powerful radar systems ever launched into space, NISAR maps nearly all of Earth’s land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days, revealing ground movement, ice flow, disaster impacts, and changes across forests, wetlands, and croplands.
PACE
By measuring tiny differences in light, PACE reads the ocean’s swirling colors like fingerprints, revealing microscopic life that supports fisheries while tracking harmful algal blooms, clouds, smoke, dust, and plant health.
SWOT
SWOT maps Earth's water, measuring the rise and fall of rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and the ocean to improve freshwater management, flood preparedness, and ocean science.
A Spaceship Called Earth
Type your name into NASA’s “Your Name in Landsat” interactive to see it spelled out in Earth features captured by Landsat satellites, then download your custom graphic.
See Your Name in Landsat
