Earth

On December 30, 2011, cloud-free skies presented NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite with this unobstructed view of the island of Guam. Note that this image, taken by the satellite's Advanced Land Imager (ALI), has been rotated and north is at right.

Tinakula is a small, volcanic island in the South Pacific, located about 2,300 kilometers (1,400 miles) northeast of Brisbane, Australia. This natural-color satellite image (top) shows a plume of volcanic gas, possibly mixed with a bit of ash, rising above the island's summit.

Lake Fitri is an endorheic or "terminal" lake in the southern Sahara Desert. Deserts get so little rainfall that the rivers passing through them often cannot reach the sea, instead ending at depressions in the land surface where they form lakes.

From the array, a CT scan-like, 3-D image of Earth's mantle under Western North America.

Yulee, Florida. Not a place one usually thinks of as an Earthquake Epicenter. But this swampland not far from the Georgia state line is now home to a state-of-the-art seismic station known as 457A. Here, within a few miles of the Atlantic Ocean, 457A has been installed to record ground motion from earthquakes. Earthquakes do happen on the East Coast of the United States, as the Virginia quake of August, 2011 attests.

The three satellites that make up ESA's Swarm magnetic field mission were presented to the media today. Following a demanding testing programme, the satellites were displayed in the cleanroom before they are shipped to Russia for their July launch. Swarm is ESA's first constellation of Earth observation satellites designed to measure the magnetic signals from Earth's core, mantle, crust, oceans, ionosphere and magnetosphere, providing data that will allow scientists to study the complexities of our protective magnetic field.

This Envisat image of the Horn of Africa shows parts of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and, to the northeast across the Red Sea, a portion of Yemen's west coast. The region is widely considered to be where early Homo sapiens emerged some 400 000 years ago. The lighter-coloured area to the east is known as the Afar Triangle and includes the Danakil Desert. Extremely hot and dry, the deepest point in this volcano-ridden depression lies 100 m below sea level.

In this image taken on Jan. 25, 2012, the Aurora Borealis steals the scene in this nighttime photograph shot from the International Space Station as the orbital outpost flew over the Midwest. The spacecraft was above south central Nebraska when the photo was taken. The image, taken at an oblique angle, looks north to northeast. Image Credit: NASA Images.