Earth-orbiting satellites and astronauts on board the International Space Station have given us a new perspective on our planet in recent decades. Here are some of our favorite satellite and space station images of Earth.
The Landsat 8 satellite, which is co-owned by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, snapped a striking real-color image of three lakes in Ethiopia.
Lake Shala's dark blue hue is due to its deep waters, which have a maximum depth of 873 feet. The lake has a maximum depth of 46 feet (14 m). Lake Langano gets its yellow color from the nearby river.
The difference in appearance of the lakes is even more surprising since they used to be part of a single lake.
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A trio of lakes stuns in a satellite image.
The Kavachi volcano in the southwest Pacific Ocean has a summit that is 65 feet below sea level.
The crater of the volcano has two types of sharks, hammerheads and silky sharks. It is likely that previous volcanic eruptions, which have been occurring intermittently since at least 1939, could be giving a boost to the marine environment.
The presence of sharks in the crater raises new questions about the ecology of active submarine volcanoes and the extreme environments in which large marine animals exist.
Satellite images show an underwater sharkcano eruption.
An astronauts on the International Space Station snapped a picture of Earth that contained two blue blobs of light in the sky. The two blobs are unrelated to each other and just happened to happen at the same time.
A massive lightning strike that occurred next to a large, circular gap in the top of the clouds is the first blob of light. The surrounding walls of the structure were lit up by lightning.
There is a blue blob in the top right of the picture. The orientation of Earth's natural satellite meant the light it reflected back from the sun went through the planet's atmosphere and turned it into a bright blue blob.
Blue blobs are in Earth's atmosphere. What are they?
A photograph of a "sunglint" that transformed the sea's surface into a swirling, silver mirror surrounding a pair of Greek islands was captured by another astronauts on the International Space Station.
Milos is a 58 square-mile Greek volcanic island and Antimilos is a 3 square mile uninhabited island.
The sun's light reflects off the sea into the astronauts' camera. Glassy ocean waters look silvery while more turbulent waters look dark. Circular ocean currents, known as gyres, and the wakes from shipping vessels can be seen in this image.
The sea's surface is turned into a mirror.
There was a golden river of dried toxic mud on the landscape near a diamond mine in South Africa after a dam collapsed.
There was a muddy mix of dust, crushed rock, water and other mining waste. There are trace amounts of metals such as copper, mercury, cadmium and zinc in the surplus slurry.
The image shows how the toxic waste flowed down the hillside in a massive wave that eventually funneled into a nearby dam. Around 26 square km of farmland was covered by the dried tailings. The dam collapsed, killing three people and injuring 40 others.
There is a river of toxic waste visible from space.
The world's largest glacier, A-76A, was captured by NASA's Terra satellite as it floated in the Drake Passage.
The ice slab is large and wide. It broke off from the ice shelf.
When northerners drift into the Drake Passage, they are dragged eastward by strong ocean currents before being whipped into warmer waters.
It's not clear when A-76A will meet its watery grave.
Satellite images show that the world's largest ice cube is getting swept away from the frozen continent.
In Peter Jackson's movie "The Lord of the Rings" there is a snow-covered volcano in New Zealand that is double as a volcano in the film.
The tallest of the Mount's three peaks is 9,177 feet above sea level, and is located between the lake and the other two peaks. The lake is heated by a magma chamber deep inside the volcano. Large amounts of volcanic gases in the water make it acidic.
The lake is used by geologists to monitor the volcano.
A striking new image from space shows acid lake atop Mount Doom.
The Landsat 8 image captured a stunning display of the immense power of seven-story-high waves as they crashed toward the shore near Nazare, a wave-surfing hot spot in Portugal.
The image shows how the ferocious swells ripped up the surrounding seafloor and created enormous underwater mounds that stretched around 10 km from the shore.
In the winter, the waves at Nazaré reach heights of more than 50 feet (15 m) due to an underwater canyon that channels wave energy. High winds from the remnants of Hurricane Epsilon amplified the waves.
On the same day that an 18-year-old surfer rode a record-breaking 101.4-foot-high (30.9 m) wave at Nazaré, a picture was taken.
Satellite image shows huge waves in Portugal.
A photo of an ancient lava flow stretching across the desert in New Mexico was taken by an astronauts on the International Space Station.
The Carrizozo Malpas is a lava flow that spans over 130 square miles. The river of volcanic rock is covered in a dark scar.
The eruption that gave birth to Carrizozo Malpas lasted between 20 to 30 years. A majority of the lava in the image came from a small 88-foot tall vent.
There are a number of desert plant species that can grow in the frozen lava.
There is a giant black scar on the New Mexico desert.
One of the world's most dangerous volcanoes, Mount Vesuvius, was seen by Landsat 8 as it peered up into the sky through an eerie, circular hole in the clouds.
The summit caldera, a large depression that forms when a volcano erupts and collapses, is visible in the image, as well as part of a large mountain ridge to the north.
The Roman city of Pompeii and the neighboring town Herculaneum were both destroyed by Vesuvius in A.D.79.
Europe's "ticking time bomb", Mount Vesuvius, is due to have another big eruption soon.
A striking satellite photo shows Mount Vesuvius looking through a hole in the clouds.
Are you interested in seeing more amazing satellite images? The Landsat satellites have some of our favorites.
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