Planetary Science

Using a Web-based greenhouse gas calculator, researchers demonstrate how farming practices can influence greenhouse gas emissions.

Acquired August 22, 2010, this natural-color image shows fires burning in Brazil.

This false-color image shows a surge of flood water approaching the city of Hyderabad in southern Pakistan on August 19, 2010.

Acquired August 16, 2010, this natural-color image shows the ice island that calved off the Petermann Glacier slowly migrating down the fjord.

Fires burn along the southeast edge of the Amazon Rain Forest in this natural color image from August 17, 2010.

Acquired August 23, 2010, this natural-color image shows Tropical Storm Danielle over the Atlantic Ocean.

Taken on July 31, 2010, this astronaut photograph shows an industrialized area of Turkey at the eastern edge of the Sea of Marmara.

Floods surround the Pakistani city of Sukkur in this false-color image from August 18, 2010.

Though fires across Russia appeared to be less intense than previously, these photo-like images show thick smoke rising from two regions in western Russia on August 15, 2010.

Winter snows partially cover Chaitén Volcano’s lava dome.

Thick smoke pours from fires burning on the Portuguese island of Madeira in this photo-like image from August 13, 2010.

Acquired August 16, 2010, this natural-color image shows the ice island that calved off the Petermann Glacier slowly migrating down the fjord.

Researchers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Arizona State University and the University of California at Riverside are studying the relationship between temperature variations and socioeconomic variables across metropolitan Phoenix.

At Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, CA, rocks big and small glide across a mirror-flat landscape, leaving behind a tangle of trails.

A series of large wildfires burning across western and central Russia, eastern Siberia and western Canada has created a noxious soup of air pollution that is affecting life far beyond national borders.

On Aug. 5, 2010, an enormous chunk of ice, about 251 square kilometers (97 square miles) in size, or roughly four times the size of Manhattan, broke off the Petermann Glacier along the northwestern coast of Greenland.

This color-coded map shows how plant growth and the carbon plants store changed between 2000 and 2009.

This detailed image, taken by the commercial WorldView-2 satellite on August 10, 2010, shows the path of a large mudslide through the Chinese city of Zhouqu.

Acquired August 13, 2010, this natural-color image shows multiple fire clusters burning near the Coast Mountains of British Columbia.

Red boxes outline the locations of several large fires in this image of northern and central Portugal taken on August 13, 2010.