The salinity of Earth's oceans

In June of 2011, NASA launched a satellite named Aquarius, designed to monitor changes in the saltiness of the Earth's waters, rainfall and evaporation of Earth's waters, and climate and weather variations. Aquarius became operational in late August of 2011, and here is a map from its first two and a half weeks of data:

The red areas of the map have the highest surface salinity, and the purple areas the lowest.

By tracking changes in the salinity of the oceans, scientists will be better able to understand ocean currents and the movement of fresh water. For instance, the satellite captured images of the effects of tropical storm Lee as it hit Louisiana, causing the Mississippi River to discharge much more than it usually does, which led to a corresponding area of lowered salinity, pictured below.

 

The salinity of the area was only temporarily lowered, as can be seen in the middle image above. Read more about the data from this time period here: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia15185

You can see the current location of the satellite here: http://aquarius.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi/whereis_aquarius

To read more about the first map, go here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/aquarius/multimedia/gallery/pia14786.html

For more information about the Aquarius project, visit http://aquarius.nasa.gov/

The Moon, in color

The United States Geological Survey teamed up with NASA from 1971 to 1998 to create a series of beautiful maps of the Moon and other planets. These maps are color-coded to show geological materials and phenomena, and the result is something that wouldn't look amiss hanging in an art gallery. Here's a portion of the map of the far (or 'dark,' if you prefer) side of the Moon:

And here is one of the Moon's western hemisphere:

You can check out the Wired article on these maps here.

NASA Tera Satellite

With the Mississippi overflowing action had to be taken causing the U.S Army Corp to open up gates to flood the Morganza Floodway. Thanks to NASA we can see the amount of water that has spread as a result of this. For more information on the Morganza Floodway or to view a larger image, go here.

Global Climate Maps

Because many developing countries do not have the technology to study in depth the amount of air pollution affecting its citizens NASA has taken it upon themselves to make a global map showing areas of higher and lower density of pollution.

Our map library has many maps similar to this as well in our vast collection!