Photos of the earth from above

Satellite images show the extent of the flooding in Sydney's north-west.

This image, from ICEYE, shows water from the Hawkesbury River, which snakes around Windsor and Richmond.

It is the third time this year the area has been hit by major floods.

However, the image was taken on Sunday, with parts of Windsor now evacuated as the situation worsens.

Footage from the GOES-17 satellite of the umbrella cloud generated by the eruption of underwater volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano on January 15, 2022, off the coast of South America.

New research, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters has revealed the extent of the impact the volcano had on the atmosphere.

The eruption was powerful enough to temporarily reverse the "equatorial electrojet" - an eastward-flowing electric current in the ionosphere.

Researchers told NASA such an event was usually sparked by magnetic activity from the Sun, rather than something on Earth.

A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite captured a strange cloud formation off the coast of Chile on May 6.

The stratocumulus clouds appeared to spell "GO".

"We were surprised to see this interesting pattern," NOAA said on Twitter.

There is a name for the phenomenon of seeing familiar shapes and patterns in objects - pareidolia.

The most famous example of this is "The Man in the Moon", where some people think they can see a face in lunar images.

NASA posted this photo on social media showing the world's highest point from space.

The photo of Mt Everest was taken almost directly above its summit by an astronaut on the International Space Station.

"The highest mountain on Earth takes on a different perspective from the vantage point of space," NASA wrote in its caption.

Mt Everest reaches 8848m above sea level, but as NASA pointed out, the clash of tectonic plates that created the Himalayas in the first place push that summit up by about 1cm a year.

Lake Peñuelas has long been the main source of water for Chile's second largest city of Valparaiso.

Now satellite images show the lake is almost entirely empty.

This satellite photo taken in 2016 shows what the lake looked like several years into the country's worst drought on record.

But now, the lake barely has a drop of water in it.

While Australia's east coast has been copping a drenching over summer, the nation of Chile is facing the opposite problem.

The reservoir is intended to supply drinking water to a metropolitan area of about a million people.

Now it is at just 0.2 per cent of capacity.

A series of three satellite images taken a month apart show how outback Queensland has been transformed by recent wet weather.

Green patches indicate where vegetation is now growing and water is seen "gushing" down now-flowing rivers, Weatherzone said as they shared the picture.

The image on the far right was taken February 11.

"The Georgina River is a tributary of the Diamantina, and it's the Georgina that is clearly visible on the top central portion of the images below, which come via the NASA Worldview satellites.

"Lake Eyre is the blue blob on the bottom left," the weather service explained.

An astronaut on board the International Space Station has captured incredible photos of the ash cloud that swept the Earth after the Tonga volcanic eruption.

NASA astronaut Kayla Barron captured four photos of how far the ash plumes had spread as the station passed over New Zealand, some 2000km south of the volcano.

The eruption of the underwater volcano destroyed the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai island, which was uninhabited.

Tsunami warnings were sent out to other parts of the world and there is still a danger of more eruptions in the aftermath.

Disaster teams, including some from Australia and New Zealand, are still assessing the damage as the eruption disrupted communication networks in the region.

Volcanologists said the Saturday blast was the most powerful volcanic eruption Earth experienced since that of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991.

The ash cloud from Tonga's eruption has progressively spread wider and could take months before it is completely cleared from the skies around the world.

This satellite image clouds parting to reveal Italy's Mount Vesuvius, the only active volcano in mainland Europe.

Due to the volcano's proximity to the heavily populated city of Naples, Vesuvius is closely monitored by a volcanological observatory.

Scientists have been able to determine through lava samples that the volcano has had eight major eruptions, the most recent occurring in 1944.

The aftermath of a snow storm has been captured by a NASA satellite circling above the US.

"After an unseasonably warm weekend across the eastern United States, a winter storm dumped a blanket of heavy snow across the Mid-Atlantic region and points west," the space agency wrote.

"This image of the storm's aftermath was taken on January 4, 2022, by MODIS, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer onboard NASA's Terra satellite.

"Terra has been orbiting above Earth since 1999, carrying five scientific instruments from the US, Japan and Canada to help us observe and understand our planet."

NASA's Earth Observatory captured this image of ethereal sea ice formations off Antarctica.

The white mass in the bottom right corner is the Ronne ice shelf, which is part of Antarctica.

At the top of the photo, sea ice which formed over winter is pushed away by winds as it begins to melt.

But the water is still cold enough that it starts to refreeze immediately, creating what is called fazil ice, which bonds to form nilas ice, which can then join to form thin ice sheets.

However, in this image, the nilas ice has formed into long, slender streaks - likely due to high winds rolling the crystals over in the ocean, NASA explained.

NASA has captured a photo of sediment which has eroded from the crater caused by a giant comet which wiped out almost all life on the planet over 66 million years ago.

The comet created a 180 kilometre wide crater when it crashed into what is now known as Mexico's Yucutan Peninsula.

The impact was catastrophic and triggered tsunamis, started wildfires, and sent a cloud of ash and dust around the globe, blocking the Sun, and cooling the climate.

Now, NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), captured a natural-colour image, showing swirls of sediment which has eroded off the thick layers of limestone and are visible off the north and west coast in the Bay of Campeche.

The NSW landscape has transformed over the past two years after the state experienced both fires and floods.

These two images captured by NASA's polar-orbiting satellites shows the state two years apart.

Smoke can be seen billowing from fires across eastern NSW and south-east Queensland in 2019.

"These fires were occurring at the end of Australia's hottest and driest year on record, and towards the end of a multi-year drought," Ben Domensino from Weatherzone said.

Now, the landscape is greener following two years of rainfall.

La Niña caused heavier rainfall across Australia both last summer and this spring, leading to changes in the landscape.

"The landscape is noticeably greener following two years of nourishing rainfall," Mr Domensino said.

"This rain has been underpinned by a La Niña last summer and another La Niña-like pattern in the Pacific Ocean this spring."

The Landsat 9 next-generation Earth-observation satellite has snapped its first photos of the planet, revealing key information to help scientists understand the way the Earth and environment work.

The satellite was launched on September 27 and captured the images on October 31.

In this photo, the city of Kathmandu in Nepal is captured.

The city at the bottom left of the image lies in a valley south of the Himalayan Mountains between Nepal and China.

The white shapes across the centre of the image are glaciers and lakes formed by glacial meltwater.

As part of Landsat 9's environmental efforts, places like the Navajo Nation (pictured), in the US West, helps scientists monitor drought conditions and manage irrigation water.

Landsat 9 works together with the similar Landsat 8, which launched in 2013, to photograph the entire Earth once every eight days.

The new satellite is replacing the aging Landsat 7, which lifted off in 1999, according to Live Science.

Landsat 9 and other remote sensing satellites help to track changes in the world's coastlines - like this picture of Pensacola Beach in the Florida Panhandle of the US.

The images can monitor urban development and potential impacts of rising sea levels.

"The data and images from Landsat 9 are expanding our capability to see how Earth has changed over decades," Karen St Germain, director of NASA's Earth Science Division, said in a statement.

"In a changing climate, continuous and free access to Landsat data, and the other data in NASA's Earth observing fleet, helps data users, including city planners, farmers and scientists, plan for the future."

Australia's outback featured front and centre when Landsat 9 took to the skies.

The remote coastal islands and inlets of the Kimberley region of Western Australia was the observation satellite's first image.

Pictured here are the US cities of Detroit, Michigan, and Canada's Windsor in Ontario.

The cities butt against the shores of Lake Erie, the fourth-largest lake in America.

When the weather warms up, Landsat 9 helps monitor potentially harmful algal blooms.