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NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare — seen as the bright flash toward the upper middle — on Feb. 4, 2026. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized in blue and red.NASA/SDO

This Feb. 4, 2026, image from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captures a strong solar flare erupting from the star. Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy that can, along with other types of solar eruptions, can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts. The flare pictured was classified as an X4.2 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.

SDO measures the Sun’s properties and solar activity to help us better understand the Sun’s magnetic changes. By studying flares and how they affect our planet and nearby space, SDO helps us to better prepare for and deal with these potential disruptions.

Image credit: NASA/SDO

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For the first time, researchers have been able to confirm that our planet’s boreal forests are on the move. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Burns

The boreal forest—the world’s largest terrestrial biome—is warming faster than any other forest type. To understand the changing dynamics of boreal forests, Feng et al., 2026 analyzed the biome from 1985 to 2020, leveraging the longest and highest-resolution satellite record of calibrated tree cover to date. The study, published in February in Biogeosciences with four co-authors from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, confirms a northward shift in boreal forest cover over the past four decades. Landsat imagery played a central role in this study: the researchers applied machine learning to process 224,026 scenes collected by Landsats 4, 5, 7, and 8 to create annual, 30-meter resolution maps of tree cover across the entire boreal biome. They downscaled and extended calibrated MODIS Vegetation Continuous Fields data to 30-meter resolution, creating a 36-year time series (1984-2020) that provided unprecedented spatial detail for tracking forest changes.

The analysis revealed that boreal forests both grew in size and moved northward. The forests expanded by 0.844 million km² (a 12% increase) and shifted northward by 0.29° mean latitude, with gains concentrated between 64-68°N. Their work also showcased the capacity of new growth to act as a carbon sink. Young boreal forests (up to 36 years) hold an estimated 1.1-5.9 petagrams of carbon (Pg C) with potential to sequester an additional 2.3-3.8 Pg C if allowed to mature. Landsat’s long time series of highly calibrated data allows researchers to study how ecosystems shift over decades, a crucial insight into our changing world. 

Explore More

Boreal Forests Are Shifting North

2 min read

The boreal forest—the world’s largest terrestrial biome—is warming faster than any other forest type. New research uses Landsat data to…

Article

Milano Cortina 2026

4 min read

About 2,900 Olympic athletes have converged on northern Italy to sort out who is the GOAT—or perhaps the stoat.

Article

Tracking Glacial Change with Landsat and Radar 

5 min read

NASA Scientist Alex Gardner highlights how Landsat made his research into the dynamics of glacial flow possible.

Article

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2

3
…

288
Next

Landsat Navigation

• Landsat Home
• Missions
• News
• Data
• Benefits
• Outreach
• Multimedia
• About
• Search

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that
supports HTML5 video

For the first time, researchers have been able to confirm that our planet’s boreal forests are on the move. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Burns

The boreal forest—the world’s largest terrestrial biome—is warming faster than any other forest type. To understand the changing dynamics of boreal forests, Feng et al., 2026 analyzed the biome from 1985 to 2020, leveraging the longest and highest-resolution satellite record of calibrated tree cover to date. The study, published in February in Biogeosciences with four co-authors from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, confirms a northward shift in boreal forest cover over the past four decades. Landsat imagery played a central role in this study: the researchers applied machine learning to process 224,026 scenes collected by Landsats 4, 5, 7, and 8 to create annual, 30-meter resolution maps of tree cover across the entire boreal biome. They downscaled and extended calibrated MODIS Vegetation Continuous Fields data to 30-meter resolution, creating a 36-year time series (1984-2020) that provided unprecedented spatial detail for tracking forest changes.

The analysis revealed that boreal forests both grew in size and moved northward. The forests expanded by 0.844 million km² (a 12% increase) and shifted northward by 0.29° mean latitude, with gains concentrated between 64-68°N. Their work also showcased the capacity of new growth to act as a carbon sink. Young boreal forests (up to 36 years) hold an estimated 1.1-5.9 petagrams of carbon (Pg C) with potential to sequester an additional 2.3-3.8 Pg C if allowed to mature. Landsat’s long time series of highly calibrated data allows researchers to study how ecosystems shift over decades, a crucial insight into our changing world. 

Explore More

Boreal Forests Are Shifting North

2 min read

The boreal forest—the world’s largest terrestrial biome—is warming faster than any other forest type. New research uses Landsat data to…

Article

Milano Cortina 2026

4 min read

About 2,900 Olympic athletes have converged on northern Italy to sort out who is the GOAT—or perhaps the stoat.

Article

Tracking Glacial Change with Landsat and Radar 

5 min read

NASA Scientist Alex Gardner highlights how Landsat made his research into the dynamics of glacial flow possible.

Article

1

2

3
…

288
Next

After 25 years, Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider—the U.S.’s largest and only particle collider—has ceased operations, but its science lives on

The upcoming drugs CagriSema and retatrutide target multiple gut hormones and could cause twice as much weight loss than current treatments. But experts wonder how much is too much

Isn’t the FLRW metric way generic? It lays out the basic assumptions and tells us how the universe should behave, but it doesn’t say WHAT the universe is made of.

The flow of ice at Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica has sped up dramatically due to the disintegration of the ice shelf in front of it, and this could lead to faster sea level rise

The flow of ice at Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica has sped up dramatically due to the disintegration of the ice shelf in front of it, and this could lead to faster sea level rise

From vegetation scans to 360-degree smoke detectors, new tools are trying to shine a light on the most dangerously dark areas of the electric grid

Science funding cuts in the UK are expected to be a "devastasting blow" for physics research, affecting international projects such as particle detection experiments at CERN

Science funding cuts in the UK are expected to be a "devastasting blow" for physics research, affecting international projects such as particle detection experiments at CERN

Many different bird species have been affiliated with the Seattle Seahawks’ mascot, but none is technically a “seahawk”

When we exercise more, our bodies may compensate by using less energy for other things – especially if we eat less too

When we exercise more, our bodies may compensate by using less energy for other things – especially if we eat less too

Week in images: 02-06 February 2026

Discover our week through the lens

Five volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io erupted simultaneously, spewing a mind-boggling amount of lava onto the surface and giving us clues to what may lie underneath

Five volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io erupted simultaneously, spewing a mind-boggling amount of lava onto the surface and giving us clues to what may lie underneath

Sometimes humans get ahead of ourselves. We embark on grand engineering experiments without really understanding what the long-term implications of such projects are. Climate change itself it a perfect example of that - no one in the early industrial revolution realized that, more than 100 years later, the emissions from their combustion engines would increase the overall global temperature and risk millions of people's lives and livelihoods, let alone the impact it would have on the species we share the world with. According to a new release from the Salata Institute at Harvard, we seem to be going down the same blind path with a different engineering challenge in this century - satellite megaconstellations.

You might think galaxies can’t ever find each other in our runaway cosmos, but it turns out gravity can sometimes overcome even the stretching of space itself

A new study suggests king cobras may be accidentally boarding trains across India