ESA Observing the Earth

Earth from Space

Earth from Space

Investing in industrial innovation

A new ESA initiative, Investing in Industrial Innovation in Earth Observation – also known as  ‘InCubed’ – kicked off today with an open call for European businesses to apply for a chance to gain financial and practical support for industry projects.

Italy’s drought seen from space

Despite the welcome showers at the weekend, abnormally low soil-moisture conditions persist in central Italy. Scientists are using satellite data to monitor the drought that has gripped the country.

New era in air-quality monitoring a step away

The Sentinel-5P satellite has arrived in Plesetsk in northern Russia to be prepared for liftoff on 13 October. Built to deliver global maps of air pollutants every day and in more detail than ever before, this latest Copernicus mission will set a new standard for monitoring air quality.

New era in air-quality monitoring a step away

The Sentinel-5P satellite has arrived in Plesetsk in northern Russia to be prepared for liftoff on 13 October. Built to deliver global maps of air pollutants every day and in more detail than ever before, this latest Copernicus mission will set a new standard for monitoring air quality.

EO Open Science

Monitoring air quality

Mapping crops

Cloud-free view

Managing water

Watching Harvey

Burn scars

Sentinel-1 speeds up crop insurance payouts

For the first time in India, a state government is using satellites to assess lost crops so that farmers can benefit from speedy insurance payouts.

Sweltering south

Greenland wildfire

Does loss lead to instability?

Thanks to the satellite era, we recently witnessed the birth of one of the biggest icebergs on record. While the breakup of Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf hit the headlines around the world, this dramatic event also presents scientists with a unique opportunity to learn more about ice-sheet stability.

Taking farming into the space age

Humans started to cultivate land around 10 000 years ago, so we must be pretty good at it by now. However, environmental concerns, sustainability, quotas, subsidies and paperwork make farming more challenging than ever. Satellites offer a solution to many of these problems, but how does the ordinary farmer tap into their potential?

Irrawaddy Delta

Earth from Space

Earth from Space

Mastering winds

Northeastern Europe

Earth from Space

Air pollution monitoring Sentinel on show

With Sentinel-5 Precursor about to be packed up and shipped to Russia for liftoff in late September, media representatives, members of the UK Space Agency and National Centre for Earth Observation had the chance to see this Copernicus air-pollution monitoring satellite standing proud in the cleanroom.

Pilanesberg

Earth from Space

Earth from Space

Vesuvius on fire

Sentinel satellite captures birth of behemoth iceberg

Over the last few months, a chunk of Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf has been hanging on precariously as a deep crack cut across the ice. Witnessed by the Copernicus Sentinel-1mission, a lump of ice more than twice the size of Luxembourg has now broken off, spawning one of the largest icebergs on record and changing the outline of the Antarctic Peninsula forever.

Sentinel satellite captures birth of behemoth iceberg

Over the last few months, a chunk of Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf has been hanging on precariously as a deep crack cut across the ice. Witnessed by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, a lump of ice more than twice the size of Luxembourg has now broken off, spawning one of the largest icebergs on record and changing the outline of the Antarctic Peninsula forever.

Call for Media: First Copernicus air-quality monitoring satellite on show

Media are invited to see the Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite on 20 July at Airbus in Stevenage, UK, before it is shipped to Russia for launch. As well as viewing this state-of-the-art Copernicus satellite in the cleanroom, media representatives will be able to learn how the mission will revolutionise air-quality monitoring.

Call for Media: First Copernicus air-quality monitoring satellite on show

Media are invited to see the Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite on 20 July at Airbus in Stevenage, UK, before it is shipped to Russia for launch. As well as viewing this state-of-the-art Copernicus satellite in the cleanroom, media representatives will be able to learn how the mission will revolutionise air-quality monitoring.

Salar de Uyuni

See our seasons change from space

With the Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite fully fledged and its data freely available, the task of monitoring and understanding our changing planet has been made that much easier. Seeing the effect spring has on our plant life is just one of its many uses.

Giant iceberg in the making

All eyes are on Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf as a deep crack continues to cut across the ice, leaving a huge chunk clinging on. When it eventually gives way, one of the largest icebergs on record will be set adrift.  Even before the inevitable happens, ESA’s CryoSat mission can reveal some of the future berg’s vital statistics.

Giant iceberg in the making

All eyes are on Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf as a deep crack continues to cut across the ice, leaving a huge chunk clinging on. When it eventually gives way, one of the largest icebergs on record will be set adrift. Even before the inevitable happens, ESA’s CryoSat mission can reveal some of the future berg’s vital statistics.

Ambrym

Earth from Space

Pandora measures fire fumes over Rome

While a fire at a rubbish depot was detected from space by the Copernicus Sentinel-3A and ESA’s Proba-V satellites, pollutants in the plume of thick smoke were measured by instruments that will be used to validate information from the upcoming Sentinel-5 Precursor mission.

France

Proba-V images Portuguese forest fire

ESA’s Proba-V minisatellite has captured the forest fire raging in central Portugal, revealing blackened scars and columns of smoke as well as pinpointing active fire hotspots.

Thar Desert

Sea ice down the drain

Earth from Space

California slide

Satellites forewarn of locust plagues

Satellites are helping to predict favourable conditions for desert locusts to swarm, which poses a threat to agricultural production and, subsequently, livelihoods and food security.

First Sentinel-2B images delivered by laser

With the Sentinel-2B satellite close to beginning its working life in orbit, this latest Copernicus satellite has linked up to Alphasat by laser, across almost 36 000 km of space, to deliver images of Earth just moments after they were captured.

Space App Camp

Space App Camp

Gulf of Finland

Earth from Space

Eye on oceans

Near-shore phytoplankton bloom captured from space

Last year, the Sentinel-2A satellite captured an intense algal bloom very close to the Belgian coast. The high-resolution capabilities of Sentinel-2’s main instrument are allowing scientists to monitor algae blooms in areas previously not possible to observe with satellites.

Quantifying the effects of climate change

Last year was the hottest on record, Arctic sea ice is on the decline and sea levels continue to rise. In this context, satellites are providing us with an unbiased view of how our climate is changing and the effects it is having on our planet.

Great Barrier Reef

The heat is on for Sentinel-3B

While the Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite is in orbit delivering a wealth of information about our home planet, engineers are putting its twin, Sentinel-3B, through a series of vigorous tests before it is shipped to the launch site next year.

Russian wildfires

Earth from Space

Sentinel-2 captures coral bleaching of Great Barrier Reef

Scientists observed the bleaching of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef early this year using satellite images. While capturing these events from space has been difficult in the past, Sentinel-2’s frequent revisits and its resolution makes it possible.

Bringing satellite data to farmers

ESA and BayWa AG are joining forces in an effort to advance the use of satellite data in farming.

Rann of Kutch

Earth from Space

Earth from Space

Earth from Space

Earth from Space

Negribreen on the move

Rapid acceleration of an Arctic glacier over the past year has been detected by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites.

Uintah Basin

Revisit #FutureEO

Earth from Space

SMOS brings Mediterranean salinity into focus

ESA’s SMOS mission maps variations in soil moisture and salt in the surface waters of the open oceans. When the satellite was designed, it was not envisaged that it would be able to measure salinity in smaller seas like the Mediterranean, but SMOS has again surpassed expectations.

EO Science for Society

Future EO

Future EO

Future EO

Amsterdam

Earth from Space

Satellites track Antarctic ice loss over decades

Over two decades of observations by five radar satellites show the acceleration of ice loss of 30 glaciers in Western Palmer Land in the southwest Antarctic Peninsula.

Australia floods

Bering Sea

Earth from Space

EO Open Science

EO Open Science

EO Open Science

Earth as a planet

Earth as a planet

Read up on climate

Read up on climate

When Swarm met Steve

Thanks to social media and the power of citizen scientists chasing the northern lights, a new feature was discovered recently. Nobody knew what this strange ribbon of purple light was, so … it was called Steve.

When Swarm met Steve

Thanks to social media and the power of citizen scientists chasing the northern lights, a new feature was discovered recently. Nobody knew what this strange ribbon of purple light was, so … it was called Steve.

Lake MacKay

Larsen, cracked

Earth from Space

Brazil

Earth from Space

ESA helps faster cleaner shipping

With around 90% of world trade carried by ships, making sure a vessel follows the fastest route has clear economic benefits. By merging measurements from different satellites, ESA is providing key information on ocean currents, which is not only making shipping more efficient but is also helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Sentinel-6 mission

Copernicus Sentinel-6

MetOp's Flying Dutchman

Vojvodina

Earth from Space

Copernicus Masters bigger than ever

This year’s Copernicus Masters competition is now open. With prizes totalling more than €1.5 million, the chance to design and launch a small satellite mission and much more, Europe’s leading competition for the novel use of Earth observation has never been so impressive.

Mocoa on the radar

Call for EarthCARE mission advisory group

With ESA’s EarthCARE Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer satellite now entering its ‘production and qualification’ phase, ESA is calling for a new Mission Advisory Group.

Urban monitoring boosted by new data processor

A new processing tool has been developed to bundle information contained in large amounts of satellite data, paving the way for the wealth of Copernicus Sentinel satellite data to be more easily incorporated into online environment-monitoring services.

Alert, Canada

Earth from Space

Climate at your fingertips

Discover our planet’s changing climate through the eyes of satellites with Climate from Space, a new digital book for iPad and Android tablets featuring interactive maps and video interviews with top scientists.

Sentinel-2B timelapse

CryoSat reveals Antarctica in 3D

Around 250 million measurements taken by ESA’s CryoSat over the last six years have been used to create a unique 3D view of Antarctica, offering a snapshot of the undulating surface of this vast ice sheet.

Improving land cover mapping with Sentinel-2

With the pair of Sentinel-2 satellites now in orbit, users are looking ahead to mapping global land cover at 10 m resolution.

Plasma jets

Rome

Satellites shed new light on earthquakes

Satellite radar scans of last year’s earthquake in New Zealand are changing the way we are thinking about earthquake hazards in regions where our planet’s tectonic plates meet.

Earth from Space

Supersonic plasma jets discovered

Information from ESA’s magnetic field Swarm mission has led to the discovery of supersonic plasma jets high up in our atmosphere that can push temperatures up to almost 10 000°C.

Swarm detects asymmetry

Strong electric currents in the upper atmosphere are known to vary according to the season, but ESA’s Swarm mission has discovered that this seasonal variation is not the same in the north and south polar regions.

Watching water

Measuring magnetism

30 years of deforestation

Unravelling Earth’s magnetic field

ESA’s Swarm satellites are seeing fine details in one of the most difficult layers of Earth’s magnetic field to unpick – as well as our planet’s magnetic history imprinted on Earth’s crust.