Gepubliceerd op 26 juni 2025
Visitors to ESA’s Earth Online portal can now explore a breathtaking collection of visuals that highlights the enormous scientific value of observing our planet from space.
The Earth Online Gallery features imagery from three key ESA Earth observation programmes: the Earth Explorers, Third Party Missions (TPMs) and Heritage Missions. Curated by a team of specialists, it is updated on a regular basis with new imagery.
The gallery shows how space-borne sensors – such as multispectral and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instruments – are delivering invaluable insight into Earth’s fragile and changing environments.
This is ALOS-1 satellite image acquired by the AVNIR-2 instrument on 14 October 2006, captures the moving waters of two lakes, Kyogo and Kojweri, situated in Uganda.
Beyond their striking visual impact, these images serve as snapshots of data that ESA disseminates to the Earth observation community for research in critical areas – from climate change and resilience, to food security and urban development.
High-definition perspectives
ESA’s TPM programme includes several very high resolution (VHR) commercial missions, such as the Pléiades Neo constellation, which is owned and operated by Airbus Defence and Space.
The VHR multispectral imager carried by Pléiades Neo can pick out road networks and buildings in fine detail. This means the two-satellite constellation is well suited to supporting infrastructure monitoring, city planning and cultural heritage activities.
The constellation’s capabilities are demonstrated in the images below, which show two world-famous historic sites: the remnants of the ancient Incan citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru, and the Colosseum located in the centre of Rome, Italy.
The Inca Citadel of Machu Picchu is shown in this Pléiades Neo image from 2023
The Colosseum of Rome: As seen by Pléiades Neo
Pléiades Neo is just one of more than 50 missions that make up the TPM collection. As well as optical imagery, the TPM data offering covers SAR, atmospheric composition, radio frequency and thermal infrared. Data users can explore the TPM collection and find out how to access data online.
The TPM collection also includes Landsat-8, which is led by NASA and the United States Geological Survey. Below, the mission uses its Operational Land Imager (OLI) to image Adam’s Bridge, which is a chain of shoals located between India and Sri Lanka.
These Landsat 5 and 8 images from 2006 and 2018 reveal Adam's Bridge, once a land connection between India and Sri Lanka.
Piecing together the past
The Earth Online Gallery contains images collected by ESA’s Heritage Missions, which are Earth observation satellites that are no longer in operation.
As part of the Heritage Space Programme, ESA archives, continuously improves and disseminates Heritage data on an open and free basis, ensuring that scientists can use these data to investigate long-term environmental trends.
Cornerstone Heritage Missions include the European Remote Sensing satellites (ERS-1 and ERS-2), Envisat, and the Gravity Field and Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE).
The images below were collected by the SAR instruments of ERS-2 and Envisat, between 1992 and 2010, over different areas of the Amazon rainforest. Comprising both single acquisitions and collages of acquisitions from different time points, they reveal the effects of deforestation in the Amazon basin over the course of nearly two decades.
Envisat ASAR Deforestation in Brazil
Envisat launched in 2002 and continued delivering data until the mission concluded in 2012. During its decade of operations, the satellite’s suite of 10 instruments tracked melting Arctic sea ice, global sea level rise and the Antarctic ozone hole – as well as extreme weather events.
The image below, gathered by Envisat’s Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) in 2005, demonstrates the latter application. It was collected over the Gulf coast of the US as Hurricane Katrina approached landfall, before causing extensive damage to the city of New Orleans.
Hurricane Katrina as captured by Envisat MERIS 25 Aug 2005
Visualising breakthrough science
Visitors to the Earth Online Gallery can also view visuals created from data acquired by ESA’s Earth Explorer Missions. This family of satellites share the common goal of advancing our understanding of Earth’s systems, by addressing principle scientific questions through the monitoring different aspects of the planet’s environment.
The visual below demonstrates how EarthCARE, which is a joint venture between ESA and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), uses its multispectral imager to assess the microphysical properties of clouds associated with tropical storms. It features Tropical Cyclone Vince, which formed over the South-West Indian Ocean in February 2025.
EarthCARE’s multispectral imager (MSI) captures Tropical Cyclone Vince on 7 February 2025 over the South-West Indian Ocean. Credit: Sebastian Bley, TROPOS
Other operational Earth Explorers include CryoSat, SMOS, Swarm and the recently launched Biomass mission.
The images included in this article provide a small taster of the hundreds of visuals featured in the Earth Online Gallery. Data users are welcome to check to gallery at any time to enjoy the latest ESA Earth observation imagery.
Source:
European Space Agency. (2025, June 25). Stunning images showcase the value of Earth observation. Earth Online.