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International Workshop on High-Resolution Thermal Earth Observations, November 18 - 20, 2025 in Toulouse, France

News Flash: ECOSTRESS has received approval for operations through FY2026 with potential continued operations until FY2029, subject to a successful 2026 Senior Review!

News Flash: ECOSTRESS has now acquired over 570,000 scenes (after In Orbit Checkout)

ECOSTRESS acquires high resolution temperature and emissivity (composition) images of the Earth's surface. These are used for a variety of applications including:

  • Determining how much water to put on fields for maximum crop with minimum water use
  • Mapping wildfires and volcanic hazards
  • Improving urban development and infrastructure
  • Discovering critical mineral resources

Plants regulate their temperature by releasing water through tiny pores on their leaves called stomata.  If they have sufficient water they can maintain their temperature, but if there is insufficient water, their temperatures rise and this temperature rise can be measured with ECOSTRESS.  The images acquired by ECOSTRESS are the most detailed temperature images of the surface ever acquired from space and can be used to measure the temperature of an individual farmers field.

One of the core products that will be produced by ECOSTRESS team is the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI). ESI is a leading drought indicator - it can indicate that plants are stressed and that a drought is likely to occur providing the option for decision makers to take action.

ECOSTRESS Science and Applications Team Meeting - Best Community Image Submission

Kilauea Volcano
Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii. Click on image to see larger version.

Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii, experienced its 30th eruption of 2025 beginning on August 6 and its 31st beginning on August 22, with lava fountains rising roughly 90 - 100 meters. The outer thermal panels use ECOSTRESS Collection 2 Level-2 LST (Land Surface Temperature) to capture the eruption cycle, showing the progression of heating and cooling around the active vents.

The color bar translates thermal intensity into estimated third-degree burn thresholds: the pale lavender tones (~328 K / 55 degrees C) correspond to approximately 30 s of exposure; deeper magenta-purple (~331 K / 58 degrees C) to approximately 10 s; red-orange (~333 K / 60 degrees C) to approximately 5 s; and the pale-yellow end (>=343 K / >=70 degrees C) indicates <1 s. These are approximate injury thresholds; actual risk varies with distance, airflow, moisture, and clothing.

All frames were geographically referenced with the new JPL GeoViewer Thermal Referencer (Longenecker et al., 2025) to ensure precise alignment of features

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the ECOSTRESS mission for the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ECOSTRESS is an Earth Venture Instrument mission; the program is managed by NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program at the agency's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

Credits: Jake Longenecker (with contributions from Gabriela Dauber, Jess Chang-Frieden, Julia Brusso, and Quin Meiseles)

NASA’s ECOSTRESS Maps LA’s Street Temperatures

Streets LA Heat
NASA’s ECOSTRESS Maps LA’s Street Temperatures. Click on image to see larger version. - NASA/JPL-Caltech

In this overlay image, retrieved land surface temperature (LST) from NASA’s Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) was downscaled to a spatial resolution of 10m and overlaid on a street map of Los Angeles. The image was derived by taking an average of all clear-sky afternoon (1-4pm) imagery acquired by ECOSTRESS from 2018-2023. The LST represents the ‘skin’ temperature of the surface (that you would feel to the touch) and is usually much hotter than the surface air temperature that meteorologists report in a weather forecast.

ECOSTRESS was launched to the international space station in 2018. Its primary mission is to identify plants’ thresholds for water use and water stress, giving insight into their ability to adapt to a warming climate. However, it has many other science uses including urban heat mitigation, wildfire mapping, water quality, and surface mineralogy. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built and manages the ECOSTRESS mission for the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ECOSTRESS is an Earth Venture Instrument mission; the program is managed by NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder program at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia